kitchen table math, the sequel: "SEXEY" paragraphs

Thursday, July 18, 2013

"SEXEY" paragraphs

I bought a terrific book on college essay writing from iTunes: Essay Writing for Students. Just $4.99. The authors seem like a lot of fun.

I like their paragraph acronym, which they characterize as "one way to structure a paragraph:
SEXEY is a mnemonic (neh-MON-ick - a memory device) to help you create well-structured paragraphs which fully answer your essay questions.

S – STATEMENT
Make a statement linking to the question that you have chosen to answer.

E – EXPLAIN
Explain what your statement means in relation to your text.

X – EXAMPLE
Add in an example and quote from your text to back up your statement and explanation.

E – EXPLANATION
What your quote and example show the reader.

Y – WHY
Why is this all important? How does it all link to the question? What does it show us? How does it link to the novel as a whole or to a social and/or historical/political context?
As far as I can tell, all of the examples in the book -- and there are many -- are academic.

No personal writing, no journalism, no op eds.

It is very difficult to find an American textbook that teaches (or excerpts) academic prose.

1 comment:

Amy and Jasmine said...

Hi Catherine,
Thanks for the post - we're thrilled to hear you liked Essay Writing for Students, when we spotted your post it made our day. It's packed with examples from our favourite books; we always hope that one will strike a chord with a student and he or she will pick up a copy.
Teach Me has two companion texts about to be released (Formal Writing for Students and Creative Writing for Students) and we will send you a promo code for each of these when they come out so you can have a look and see what you think.
From Amy and Jasmine at Teach Me.