Week 9: Clint Smith in full

Week 9: College Reading and Writing: Suffolk County House of Corrections at South Bay

Clint Smith:  Annotating, Summarizing, Analyzing, ARGUING

to annotate: to make notes on something to help you understand it better

to summarize: to put something in your own words

to analyze: to consider a question on the text, providing supporting examples from the text

to argue: to take a position and defend it against counterarguments with evidence

arguable thesis statement: the position you defend in your argument essay

Exercise: Read and annotate

1. Read the attached article out loud and underline any words you need to look up

2. Write any questions you have in the margins, the white space on the page

3. Put tricky parts into your own words in notes in the margins, the white space on the page

      Exercise: Summarize the article

Last week you wrote a paragraph summarizing the excerpt with quotations, in-text citation, and a Work Cited page.  This week, summarize parts of the article that were left out of the excerpt.

example summary, incorporating quotation and in-text citation:

Clint Smith's full article "What Prisoners Serving Life Sentences Gain From Education" includes more students' perspectives than the excerpt; we are introduced to Lance, who is "rigorously prepared" each week (Smith, 2017).  The full article also includes more support for the argument that all incarcerated people deserve education,  including Jill McDonough saying "I don't need prison education to have quantifable outcomes" (Smith, 2017).

Work Cited Page

Smith, Clint. ""What Prisoners Serving Life Sentences Gain From Education" The Atlantic Monthly June 27, 2017.

Exercise: Analysis

Question for analysis: Which of Smith's arguments do you find the most convincing?  What's an additional argument for prison education that isn't present in the article? 

Exercise: Argument

Write an essay for or against prison education.  Think about people who might disagree with you; what counterarguments can you include and undermine to strengthen your argument? Feel free to use your own words and experience, quote a classmate, or quote and cite another text as evidence to support your position. Start with an arguable thesis statement that addresses counterargument; using "while" can help keep you focussed on this.

example thesis statement for an argument, incorporating quotation and in-text citation:

While prison-education programs require additional resources, their value far exceeds their cost.  In addition to the lasting connections they build between incarcerated people and members of communities on the outside,  educational programs "keep prisons safer" and reduce recidivism, ultimtely saving money (Smith, 2017). 

In your essay, back up your introductory paragraph with a paragraph for each of your supporting points. Strengthen these paragraphs by considering counterargument whenever you can.