In elementary school, someone may have taught you to “hook a reader” by starting an essay with a definition. This has become pretty cliched and not engaging. But readers do need to have things defined for them. And while definitions may not help us start a piece of writing, they can help us structure a writing by bridging the introduction and the body. In this video, You’ll learn a move writers in all genre use -- the definition hinge structure -- to provide crucial context for readers while moving them from the introduction into the main ideas of your writing.

Students will engage with primary source documents to explore the reasons behind memorializing people in public art. Students will craft written or oral statements to support an argument in favor of installing a statue of Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, Philo T. Farnsworth, or Brigham Young in National Statuary Hall.

When we need to quickly summarize an event, idea, or text, a 101-level synopsis won’t always do the trick. Sometimes the text is more complicated -- it contains a central tension or conflict that needs to be addressed. In that case, a Pivot Synopsis will do the trick. It’s the more nuanced cousin of Synopsis 101 that allows a writer to say something more sophisticated while still summarizing quickly.

Mentor Texts:
“The question of humanness troubles the clones, as well as sympathetic individuals like the guardians. On Hailsham’s mission, one of the guardians Miss Emily proclaims, “Most importantly, we demonstrated to the world that if students were reared in humane, cultivated environments, it was possible for them to grow to be as sensitive and intelligent as any ordinary human being.” The liberal-minded guardians invested in the students’ cultural education not only with the aim of improving their quality of living, but also to establish that their lives were worth saving. Working against the rationalization of science, the guardians looked to the students’ creativity as the truer measure of their being human.” -Mimi Wong, “Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go is a Masterpiece of Racial Metaphor”, Electric Lit

Direct quotes are the first thing that comes to mind when we think about text evidence. But more often than not, writer paraphrase their evidence -- putting it in their own words. In this video, we’ll look at cross-curricular examples of authors paraphrasing text, looks for patterns, and learn a method for paraphrasing ourselves.

When we need to quickly summarize an event, idea, or text, a 101-level synopsis won’t always do the trick. Sometimes the text is more complicated -- it contains a central tension or conflict that needs to be addressed. In that case, a Pivot Synopsis will do the trick. It’s the more nuanced cousin of Synopsis 101 that allows a writer to say something more sophisticated while still summarizing quickly.

In our first series of the 2022-2023 school year, we're getting back to the basics. Every Tuesday and Thursday, we'll release a new video that reviews a core writing move or strategy.

One of our goals at Mini Moves for Writers is to teach you multiple ways to hack a writing skill. In this video, we'll build on the standard way you've probably been taught to weave text evidence into your writing in both English and social studies classes.

In this video, learn three fundamental paragraph types that will help any writer meaningfully organize their writing. Paragraphs -- even basic ones -- help both the reader and the writer make sense of and build connections between ideas in a piece of writing. This video features:
1 Idea, 1 Paragraph
Single-Sentence Paragraph
1 Idea, Multiple Paragraphs (+ Transition)

As we’ve talked about in Paraphrasing Text Evidence (• How to Paraphrase Text Evidence , professional writers paraphrase more often than they directly quote. So, how do we decide when a direct quote is the best way to support an idea? In this video, Rebekah shares three times writers choose to use a direct quote instead of paraphrasing and gives two important tips for how to quote with sophistication like the pros.