S2 – Academic Writing: Research, Fiction, and Nonfiction

Lesson Title: Reverse Outlining: Argument Structure

Week 11 – Day 4
Lesson 2: 120 min

Purpose of the Lesson

In the first part of this class, students will apply the morning’s lesson to their own (research
project) thesis statements, to add depth as necessary. Most of the lesson focuses on
outlining. A strong outline becomes more important the more complex the argument
becomes, and thus this afternoon’s lesson builds on ideas from the morning class. Students
will practice “reverse outlining,” by creating an outline of an existing argument, in order to
see how a complex argument might be structured. This will help them to plan their own
argument for the research project, the outline for which is due next week. The lesson thus
also complements this week’s nonfiction strand, since the main turns in an argument should
be reflected in the introduction and conclusion.

Lesson Learning Objectives

Students will
 Revise and/or polish their own thesis statement
 “Reverse outline” an article to show the structure of the argument

Key Words
“Bull in a china shop”; Elon Musk; Hominid; “Like a hot knife through butter”; Niceties;
Oncologist; Wherewithal

Readings
 “Nine Reasons Why Pluto is a Planet” by P. Metzger
 “Will We Ever Colonize Mars?” by P. Sutter

Lesson Overview
Topic Time Activity Readings & Resources
Warm-up 5 mins Intro

Enriching one’s own 15 mins Individual and Students’ research proposals

thesis partner work
Introduction to 10 mins Lecture
“reverse outlining”
Warm-up for 15 mins Activity in pairs “Nine Reasons Why Pluto is a
outlining Planet” by P. Metzger

Reverse outlining 60 mins Individual work “Will We Ever Colonize Mars?”

S2-E-W11-D4-L2 1/6
 Topic Time Activity Readings & Resources
activity by P. Sutter
Take-up and 15 mins Discussion “Will We Ever Colonize Mars?”
summary Possible Outline handout

Detailed Curriculum
0 to 5 minutes Intro
Give students an overview of the lesson:
1. Students continue with adding richness to a thesis by now looking at their own.
2. Return to outlining, which we looked at a bit in the first half of the course; this time,
the focus will be on “reverse outlining” (to be introduced today). Students’ own
outlines are due next week.

Answer any questions before allowing students to turn to their theses.

5 to 20 minutes Rich Thesis Statements

Have students work for several minutes on their own, each using his/her own research proposal.
Students should determine how rich their thesis statements are, and see if there is any way to
add complexity; they can use the handout entitled Tips: A few ways to add richness to a thesis
statement from the morning class for ideas, and might draw on points from their annotated
bibliography and/or from new ideas that have come out through more recent research.

After working on their own for around 10 minutes, they can spend a few minutes at the end of
this session sharing their ideas briefly with a partner (or in a group of 3) and getting feedback.

20 to 30 minutes Lecture: Introduction to “Reverse Outlining”

Have students recall the basic purpose and content of an argument outline.

 e.g. Shows the structure/organization of an argument, identifies the main points and
how each relates to the thesis and/or other ideas

 e.g. Helpful for the writer in planning out an argument.

Connect these ideas to the morning’s emphasis on rich/complex arguments:

 The more complex the argument, the more careful one has to be with structuring it.

S2-E-W11-D4-L2 2/6
  Good planning of the organization of ideas can help showcase one’s own creative
thinking about the topic: creative, insightful connections between ideas make for a
more interesting paper, but tend to require extra (and extra-careful) thought.

“Reverse outlining” is when an argument already exists (your own or someone else’s) and you
pull an outline from it that shows the structure and conceptual connections of that argument.
“Reverse” because the outline isn’t being used to structure an argument, but the opposite:
Argument structure is being used to derive an outline. This is a useful exercise because:

 It is a skill all by itself to be able to identify the thesis and key points in an argument.
It hones critical reading skills, helping you to understand an argument you are
encountering for the first time. It also provides practice and application of
summarizing skills.

 It helps to build one’s own outlining skills (i.e. for one’s own arguments). E.g. similar
to what Fish said about sentences (Day 2 this week) – we can learn how to write
strong sentences by studying other strong sentences – we can learn how to plan and
organize an argument logically by studying compelling arguments and exploring how
they were structured. This makes “reverse outlining” a useful activity as we’re now
starting to structure our own research paper arguments.

 It is something we can do with our own papers, once we have a draft. It’s especially
useful if we feel that our essay is a bit disjointed/disorganized, or if we notice that
connected ideas are happening pages apart, etc. It is helpful as a form of
proofreading/editing too: “Here is my essay as a whole. Does it flow? Does it build to
a point? Do the connections make sense?”

30 to 45 minutes Activity in Pairs: Warm-up for Outlining

Have students refer to the Metzger article. Working in pairs, give the students 5 to 7
minutes to determine the following:

1. Whether it strikes them as an easy or difficult article to produce an outline for, and why.
2. Their strategy for outlining this argument – i.e. they can start to create an outline for
it. Note: Although with just a few minutes they won’t get far, this isn’t the point of
this part of the lesson. The Metzger argument is so clearly divided into a thesis and
independent sub-points that it provides a good first example of an argument that
one could provide a structured outline for.

Briefly take up students’ ideas (7 - 10 mins). Most likely (bring these ideas out, insofar as
students don’t offer them themselves):

S2-E-W11-D4-L2 3/6
 1. It looks easy to outline, because it has a clearly stated thesis and numbered reasons
why the thesis is true. The headings almost provide an outline for it already.

2. Strategy: Use headings as headings; choose the most important point(s) from each
section to support/explain the claim made in the heading. (use the first heading as
an example of this)

45 to 105 minutes Individual work: Reverse Outlining an Argument

Most arguments are not as straightforward as Metzger’s. Have students work individually on
the Sutter article “Will We Ever Colonize Mars?” This is a good candidate, since it is a new
article and argument, and does not provide headings to identify major subsections, but it
has an explicitly stated thesis near the beginning and is fairly clear in its sub-points. While it
will be far more challenging than with the Metzger article, it should be possible for students
to identify main and supporting ideas. Circulate the room to provide guidance as needed.
Toward the end of the work session, students can briefly compare their solutions with a
partner if they wish.

105 to 120 minutes Take-up and Summary

Briefly take up the activity. Use the “‘Will We Ever Colonize Mars?’ Possible Outline” below as
an aid (keeping in mind that it is only an example, and outlines may look different while still
being faithful to Sutter’s argument. Not all points need to be covered, but some major
supporting ideas should be identified and some common areas of difficulty should be discussed.

Have students hand in their outlines of the Sutter article. Check these to see if students are
getting the general idea. Have they successfully identified most or all of the major ideas that
support the thesis, and a point or two under each? Etc.

Homework reminder: Working outline of second research paper (due Week 12, Day 4)

Appendix
 “Will We Ever Colonize Mars?” Possible Outline handout

S2-E-W11-D4-L2 4/6
“Will We Ever Colonize Mars?” Possible Outline

Thesis: We will eventually colonize Mars, but it will be extremely difficult.

Sending humans to Mars would require significant new technology

Objects need to go extremely fast to escape Earth’s orbit

 Just to put something in orbit, speed must be approx. 11 km/second
o Any slower, and it will descend to Earth again
o Travelling to Mars requires far greater speeds, fast enough to escape Earth’s
gravity altogether

 Solutions? Yes:
o Rockets work well, but humans make things more complicated (transitional point
to next idea)
- Humans add weight to a rocket, in addition to needing oxygen, food, basic
comforts, transportation back to Earth – all of this just to make the trip at all

Humans (as opposed to just “objects”) pose additional problems

 So far we don’t have the ability to send humans further into space (at all) than Low
Earth Orbit

 A colony is far more complicated than just a trip

o Need food production, manufacturing of goods, liquid water, proximity to other
communities
o South Pole Station is extremely difficult to live in, and it has far more necessities
and Earth-connection than a Mars colony would

Cosmic rays make a trip to Mars very hazardous

 on Earth, rays are not a major problem because they are filtered by Earth’s
atmosphere
o without the protection of this atmosphere, rays will cause cancer

The financial incentives will eventually be in place, but so far are not
 existing projects and proposals of every type require huge amounts of money (as
well as time to develop technology and plans)

 financial disincentives will only disappear if:

o we become vastly wealthier as a society, or
o there is a huge political or economic incentive to pursue Mars settlement
- these are so far not the reality, but eventually will be

S2-E-W11-D4-L2 5/6
Note:

1. The preamble about throwing something, and about gravity and air resistance, is not
really a direct supporting idea. Rather, it is a way to make the reader relate to the
difficulty of sending anything into orbit or beyond.

2. In a few cases, points are not in exactly the order in which they appear in the article;
major supporting ideas are, but sub-points may not be. This is because the outline
presents ideas without rhetoric and connecting points, based purely on their logical
connections. This helps to get the logic clear. The writer has the option of reordering
ideas for rhetorical purposes, using other ways of showing how points relate.

S2-E-W11-D4-L2 6/6