John Oliver’s reporting on Last Week Tonight often employs the AXES structure that most academic essays use, even with the jokes he adds. With that in mind, I’ve written the follow
english question
John Oliver’s reporting on Last Week Tonight often employs the AXES structure that most academic essays use, even with the jokes he adds. With that in mind, I’ve written the following question, which are meant to guide you through the content and structure of the piece.
I suggest copying the questions onto a Word document to answer them and then pasting them into the text entry field.
Answer the following questions about Last Week Tonight’s story on Prison Labor. The piece if embedded at the bottom of this page.
What impact does the Bill Cosby video have on you as a viewer?
What is the thesis of the piece?
What is the larger point of Olivers using the anecdote of inmates fighting fires in California? Do you think he makes his point effectively? Why/not?
What is your reaction to the pieces coverage of the prison rodeo?
At one point, Oliver points out that this system can lead to inmates being viewed as a source of cheap labor rather than as people who are paying a debt to society. Do you think he supports that claim well? Why/not?
What are some expenses that inmates need money for? Do these expenses strike you as reasonable?
What is the larger purpose of Johns citing Arizonas proposed law requiring female prisoners to pay for feminine products?
What do you notice about the way that John addresses JPays (a subsidiary of Securus) control of the way that inmates can have contact with the outside world? What details about this situation stand out to you?
In your opinion, does John address concerns of smuggling contraband into prisons effectively?
What stands out to you about the way the piece wraps up?
Body Paragraph Development: AXES
Michael Miklos
The thesis functions as a blueprint or map of what is to come in the body of the essay. It states the overarching viewpoint or contention of the writer that the subsequent paragraphs build upon and validate. Yet as important as the thesis is in directing the reader through the essay, the paragraphs are the content holders and makers of your argument. Without strong, compelling, and well-organized paragraphs, your thesis means nothing. Each paragraph should contain a main idea, evidence to support that idea, and analysis of that evidence, functioning much like a mini-essay with the topic sentence acting as the thesis for that paragraph. These elements are detailed below.
ASSERTION: This is sometimes the first sentence of the paragraph that makes a claim about the text, much like a thesis but more local, meaning narrower and more specific than a thesis. (Students should note that there are times when the paragraph will begin with a clause that transitions from the preceding paragraph to the topic sentence.) It informs the reader right away what the paragraph is aiming to achieve. My example paragraph works with violence in video games:
Claims about correlations between violent video games and violent behavior have revealed some disturbing trends, but they need to be considered critically, no matter how convincing they may appear.
XAMPLE: This is where you begin explaining why you make your claim by presenting your evidence. Most often, your evidence will be a quotation from the text. In order for your reader to understand your evidence, you must provide a context for it with a signal phrase. Tell only what reader will need in order to understand the point youre making. For example, a) whos speaking; b) to whom; c) the setting; d) whos present; e) what has just happened; f) what is happening; g) at what point in the text this occurs; h) what happens as a result. Note that this is neither a formula nor a definite list. Just make sure you provide enough background to make sure the evidence you provide makes sense to your reader. For example:
One frequently cited study that was conducted by the Hugs Not Guns, for example, revealed that teens who play violent games are 35% more likely to behave violently than those who do not play these games. Critics of violent video games like Vice City have cited this statistic as evidence that video games cause violence.
ELABORATION: This is where you do most of your close reading, showing your reader how you interpret your evidence. You want to provide your reader with some food for thought by dissecting the evidence in a way that shows something they may not have considered previously. For example:
But the causal link may not be as simple as that. There are many factors that may account for this correlation: unhappy domestic situations, breakups, and general teen angst may all contribute to teens violent tendencies. None of these factors is accounted for in this study, but it is possible that these problems make teens feel an aggression which attracts them to violent video games.
SUMMATION: This is where you conclude about the point you are making with your evidence. Take your specific interpretation one step further to make a point that your next paragraph can pick up and develop. This is where you demonstrate how your interpretation of the evidence logically leads us to your assertion and/or you begin to provide a transition to your next paragraph. This might also be the point at which you need to do some recursive polishing: make sure your Assertion (topic sentence) reflects what you demonstrate through your analysis; and by the same token, make sure your analysis supports the point you want to make. For example:
While I agree with those who fear that playing video games too much prevents children from the type of physical interaction that sports may offer, I am more fearful that attempts to restrict or ban sales of these games would only address a symptom of teen aggression, not its cause.
Considering this Summation, what would you expect to see in the following paragraph?
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