Suppose you want your district to run a late bus from the high school at 5:30, so students in after-school clubs and sports can get home. You have the evidence: the last bus leaves at 3:15, a quarter of the robotics team has quit since the fall, and a neighboring district added a late run last year. That evidence can't settle two decisions you still have to make: where your claim goes, and which pattern will carry the argument. The school board, the parents, and your classmates each need a different answer.
Deciding where your claim goes
Start from where your reader stands before reading a word. Three questions settle the order.
- Does the reader agree, disagree, or not yet see a problem? A reader who already agrees, or who is undecided but open, can take the claim first, and every paragraph after it reads as support. A reader who will resist your position, or who doesn't think anything is wrong, is better led through the evidence before meeting the claim.
- How much attention will the reader give you? A board member reading thirty requests before a meeting wants the point in the first two sentences. A newspaper reader who has opened a feature story will read a scene first.
- Does the form expect a stated position? A letter of request, an editorial, and a proposal all signal their position early. A speech at a ceremony or a personal essay can save it.
For the late bus, the board gets the claim first: they are deciding among requests, and a request buried in paragraph four may never be read. A column in the parents' newsletter can open with a fifteen-year-old waiting in the dark outside the gym at 6:00, because parents who haven't thought about the problem need to see it before they will care about the fix.
The AP essays are their own situation. Your reader is a trained scorer, and the scoring rules credit a defensible thesis wherever it appears in the essay, as long as it is stated in one sentence or a few sentences close together. Placement still matters for the rest of the score. A thesis in the introduction tells the scorer what every body paragraph is for, so each piece of evidence reads as support for a known claim. A thesis that surfaces only in the last paragraph leaves the body paragraphs looking like evidence for nothing in particular, which weakens the line of reasoning that the evidence-and-commentary score judges. So state your thesis in your introduction. You can still open with a sentence or two of scene or context before it.
Choosing a method of development for your reader
Topic 3.1 described five methods of development (narration, cause-effect, comparison-contrast, definition, description) and what each supplies. When you write, run that table backward: work out what your reader lacks, then pick the method that supplies it. For the late bus:
| Reader | What they lack | Method | What the paragraph does |
|---|---|---|---|
| School board | Confidence that the bus solves a real, costly problem | Cause-effect | Traces the chain: no late bus, so students without a ride quit, so teams shrink and the clubs the district advertises fade |
| School board, second paragraph | A precedent they can trust | Comparison-contrast | Sets the neighboring district's first year beside this district's situation: similar size, similar distances, what happened to their club numbers |
| Parents | A picture of the problem | Narration | Tells one evening (practice ends at 5:15, the parking lot empties, a student calls three people for a ride) and then reflects on what the evening means |
| Classmates in the school paper | Agreement on what counts as "access" | Definition | Argues that a club you can't get home from isn't open to you, so "open to all students" is false as things stand |
A method only helps if it actually moves the reader toward the claim, and each one has its own way of failing.
- Narration must end in reflection. The story shows; the sentences after it say what it shows and why it matters. Without them, you have an anecdote and no argument.
- Cause-effect must make every link believable. "No late bus, so the robotics team shrinks" skips a step a skeptic will notice: show that students without rides are the ones quitting.
- Comparison-contrast must compare cases that share the feature your argument depends on. A district twice your size with city buses is not a precedent.
- Definition must be one your reader can accept. Quoting a dictionary entry for a word nobody disputes wastes the paragraph; the point is to fix a word the argument turns on.
- Description must select details that point toward a judgment. Twelve details of a parking lot at dusk are only scenery unless they make the reader feel how empty and dark it is.
In the argument essay, these methods are how you develop body paragraphs. One paragraph might trace causes, another might compare two cases, a third might narrate something you saw and reflect on it. Choosing them on purpose, for what this reader needs at this point, is what keeps an essay from three paragraphs of "another example is."
Openings and endings that fit the route
The order you choose decides what your first and last paragraphs must do. In a claim-first piece, the opening establishes why the issue matters now and states the claim, and the ending looks forward: what the reader should do, or what follows if the claim is right. Repeating the thesis in new words gives the reader nothing new. In a reasoning-first piece, the opening has to hold the reader without the claim, usually with a scene, a question, or a surprising fact, and the ending delivers the claim. A strong way to end a reasoning-first piece is to return to the opening image and show it changed: the student waiting outside the gym, now on a bus at 5:35. Unit 4 covers introductions and conclusions in depth.
Revision questions about the situation
Multiple-choice writing questions give you a student's draft with numbered sentences, and several kinds of stem test this skill.
"Engage readers and introduce the topic" (a sentence before sentence 1). The right choice does both jobs at once and leads straight into the draft's actual first sentence. A sentence that is lively but introduces a different focus, or that summarizes the whole draft in advance, fails one of the jobs.
"Conclude by connecting to the opening." The right choice refers back to something specific from the first sentences, usually an image or a number, and shows what the draft's proposal would change about it. A general statement of the topic's importance doesn't connect to anything.
"Develop the argument for readers who..." The stem names a reader and sometimes a doubt. Decide which method answers that doubt (a reader who thinks the problem is minor needs consequences, which is cause-effect), then find the choice that uses it on this draft's subject.
"Keep or delete." Ask whether the sentence serves what this paragraph is doing for this reader. A true and interesting sentence that does a different job is the standard deletion.
Worked examples
A student wants the town to keep its outdoor ice rink staffed on winter evenings; the parks department plans to stop paying the two evening attendants to save money, which would close the rink at 4:30. The rink's sign-in sheets show that most skaters come after 4:30. Plan two pieces: a letter to the parks committee, and a short column for the community newsletter that goes to every household. For each, decide where the claim goes and which method(s) carry it, and write the first two sentences.
Show solution
The parks committee. These readers made the cut to save money, so they will read the letter looking for whether it costs more than it saves. They are busy and are deciding a budget line, so the claim goes first. The method is cause-effect, because the committee needs consequences it can weigh: closing at 4:30 means no skating after work or school, which empties the rink on weeknights, which weakens the case for flooding it at all next year. A short comparison helps if one exists (the year the rink stayed open late and how many evening skaters signed in).
Please keep the two evening attendants at Miller Park rink this winter. Closing the rink at 4:30 will save their wages, but it will also remove the only hours most students and working adults can skate, and the sign-in sheets show that those hours account for most of the rink's use.
The newsletter. Most households have never thought about the rink's hours and don't feel any loss yet, so they need to see the evening before they will care about the budget. Narration first, claim at the end, with reflection connecting the two.
At 6:30 on a January weeknight, the floodlights at Miller Park light up thirty skaters, a father pulling a toddler on a sled across the ice, and a pickup hockey game that has run since the 1990s. If the parks department's budget goes through, that rink will be dark by 4:30.
Why these choices. The same evidence appears in both pieces, but in a different order and carried by different methods, because the committee's question ("Is this worth the money?") and the households' question ("Why should I care?") need different answers first. In the committee letter, the sign-in sheets come in the second sentence; in the newsletter they would come later, after the scene has made the numbers matter.
An argument essay prompt asks students to take a position on whether learning a skill slowly, by trial and error, has value when step-by-step videos can teach almost anything quickly. A student's thesis says that slow learning is worth its cost because it teaches you to understand your mistakes rather than only to avoid them. Write a body paragraph that develops this thesis through narration.
Show solution
A model paragraph.
The summer I was thirteen, my uncle refused to let me watch a video on tying a fishing knot. He tied a clinch knot once, slowly, and handed me the line. My first knot slipped loose the moment I pulled it; my second held until a sunfish took the hook and snapped it. Each failure showed me something the finished knot never would: the first had too few wraps to grip, the second had wraps that crossed and cut into each other under strain. By August I could tie the knot in the dark, but more than that, I could look at someone else's failed knot and tell them why it failed. A video would have taught me the knot in four minutes and left me stuck the first time the line behaved differently from the one on the screen. Learning slowly gave me the knot's reasons along with its steps, and the reasons are what let me fix a knot when something goes wrong.
Why it works. The paragraph has seven sentences. Sentences 1 to 3 narrate, with details specific enough to be believed (the uncle's single slow demonstration, the sunfish). Sentence 4 begins the reflection while the story is still running: it says what each failure taught (too few wraps, crossed wraps). Sentence 5 closes the story with its result and reflects on it (by August the writer could diagnose other people's knots), and sentences 6 and 7 connect the story to the thesis: slow learning gives you the reasons behind a skill, which is exactly the claim. The contrast with a video answers the prompt's alternative directly. Compare a weaker version that ends at "By August I could tie the knot in the dark": the story would be as vivid, but a reader couldn't tell what it proves, and in a scored essay that is evidence without commentary.
The passage below is a draft written for the school newspaper.
(1) On the first warm Saturday in March, the bike rack outside the gym holds four bicycles. (2) By June it holds forty. (3) Most of the bikes in between spent the winter in garages with flat tires, slipped chains, and brakes that squeal or barely work. (4) Few of their owners know how to fix any of it, and the nearest bike shop is eleven miles away.
(5) The Cycling Club wants to change that. (6) On the first Saturday in April, club members will set up four repair stands in the student parking lot from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. (7) Anyone can bring a bike, and the club will fix flats, adjust brakes, and replace chains at no charge, using parts donated by club families. (8) Members will also show owners how to make each repair themselves. (9) Last year's club president, who now studies engineering, designed the repair stands in a shop class. (10) The club asks only that each visitor bring the bike clean enough to work on.
(11) A tune-up takes about twenty minutes. (12) For many students, those twenty minutes are the difference between riding to school and asking for a ride.
Question 1. The writer wants to add a sentence after sentence 4 that develops the problem through cause and effect for readers who doubt that a broken bike matters much. Which of the following sentences best accomplishes this goal?
- (A) The chains are orange with rust, and the tires sag flat against the concrete floor.
- (B) A student whose bike won't run rides the bus or waits for a parent, and when practice ends after the last bus leaves, often skips practice altogether.
- (C) Fixing a bicycle is far simpler than fixing a car, which has thousands of moving parts.
- (D) Many students received their bikes as gifts when they were younger.
Question 2. The writer is considering deleting sentence 9. Should the writer keep or delete it?
- (A) Keep it, because it shows readers that the club has engineering expertise they can trust.
- (B) Keep it, because it explains how the club is able to offer repairs at no charge.
- (C) Delete it, because it interrupts the paragraph's account of what visitors can expect with a detail readers don't need in order to decide whether to come.
- (D) Delete it, because it contradicts the claim in sentence 6 about the number of repair stands.
Question 3. The writer wants to add a sentence at the end of the passage that concludes it by connecting to the opening. Which of the following sentences best accomplishes this goal?
- (A) Cycling is good exercise, and it is good for the environment.
- (B) The club also plans to hold a second repair day in the fall.
- (C) If enough of those garage bikes come out in April, the rack outside the gym may not have to wait until June to fill.
- (D) Bike shops can charge forty dollars or more for a basic tune-up.
Show solution
1. (B). The stem asks for cause and effect aimed at a doubter, so the right sentence has to show consequences that make a broken bike matter. (B) traces a chain: broken bike, then dependence on the bus or a parent, then missed practice. (A) is description: vivid, but it shows the bikes' condition, which sentence 3 already established, and gives no consequence. (C) is a comparison that addresses how hard repair is, not why it matters. (D) is beside the point.
2. (C). Paragraph 2 tells readers what they need to show up: when, where, what gets fixed, what it costs, and what to bring. Sentence 9 is a pleasant fact about the stands' history that does none of that. (A) is the tempting choice, but a designer of stands says little about the repairs, and the readers are deciding whether to bring a bike, not whether to trust the engineering. (B) is false: sentence 7 says donated parts make the repairs free. (D) invents a contradiction.
3. (C). The draft opens with the rack's four bikes in March and forty in June; (C) returns to that image and shows what the repair day could change about it, which is the connection the stem asks for. (A) is a general claim about cycling that connects to nothing in the opening. (B) adds new information. (D) is evidence that might belong in paragraph 2, but it doesn't touch the opening.
The method behind all three. Each stem named a job (a method for a doubter, a paragraph's purpose, a link to the opening). The key did that job on this draft; every distractor stayed on the subject of bikes and did a different job.
Where students lose points
On the exam
Writing questions in the multiple-choice section ask which sentence best opens or concludes a draft, which addition best develops it for a stated audience or purpose, and whether a sentence should be kept or deleted. In the free-response section, the argument essay is where your own choices of order and method are scored: a defensible thesis, body paragraphs whose evidence is developed and explained, and, for the highest scores, a sense of the situation behind the issue. Topic 3.6 covers building the line of reasoning and the commentary that carries it.
Check yourself
Question 1
A writer argues that her town should save a closed textile mill and reuse it as a public market. Most residents have never been inside; they know the mill only as a fenced, empty building. Which method of development best suits the paragraph that has to change how they see it?
- A
Definition, explaining what the term "public market" means
- B
Description, showing the mill's high windows, open floors, and brick arches as a visitor would see them
- C
Cause-effect, tracing why the mill closed decades ago
- D
Narration of how the writer first became interested in old buildings
Show answer
B
The readers lack a view of the inside, and description supplies exactly that, with details chosen to make the space look usable. Choice C is tempting because it is about the mill, but explaining why it closed doesn't change how residents picture it now.
- A
Question 2
A student's argument essay contains this body paragraph's final sentences: "My grandmother kept a garden for forty years. Every fall she saved seeds from her best tomatoes in labeled envelopes." Her thesis says that everyday habits of saving teach patience better than any lesson about it. Write one or two sentences of reflection that would turn the story into support for the thesis.
Show answer
A strong answer says what the habit taught and connects it to the thesis, for example: "Saving seeds meant waiting a full winter to find out whether the choice was good, and watching her taught me that some results can only be earned by waiting. No one ever lectured me about patience; the envelopes in her drawer did it for her."
Narration argues only when the writer reflects on what the story shows. The reflection has to name the lesson and tie it to the thesis's claim about habits versus lessons.
Question 3
A student wrote a reasoning-first piece for the school paper, opening with a story and stating her request (that the cafeteria add a salad bar) in the last paragraph. She now plans to send it to the student council, which has already voted to support a salad bar and is deciding how to propose it to the principal. Which revision best fits the new readers?
- A
Add a longer opening story to make the problem more vivid
- B
State the request at the start and shift the ending toward what the council should include in its proposal
- C
Remove the request entirely, since the council already agrees
- D
Add a definition of a salad bar
Show answer
B
Readers who already agree don't need to be led to the claim, and their question is what to do next, so the claim moves up and the ending turns to action. Choice C goes too far: the council still needs the writer's reasons and evidence to make its own case to the principal.
- A
Question 4
City council members think a proposed downtown splash pad will cost too much. Five years ago the same council built a skate park that critics also called too expensive, and downtown shops later reported more weekend customers. Name the method of development that fits these readers, and explain why.
Show answer
Comparison-contrast: set the splash pad beside the skate park. The council already judged the skate park and has seen its results, so the comparison lets them reason from a case they accepted, as long as the writer shows the two projects share the feature that matters (bringing families downtown on weekends).
A comparison works when readers know one case well and accept it. It fails if the cases differ in the way the argument depends on, so the writer must show the shared feature.