UMass Lowell's First Year Writing Program

For CWI, help students identify, consider, and use concepts from reading to interpret evidence.  You can provide a text exploring a concept and ask students to gather their own evidence, or you can provide other texts with evidence.  At least once during the semester, ask students to incorporate quantitative evidence, as well as documentary source evidence.

These formats will work for a variety of different situations and ideas.

·    Explain how concept X illuminates case study Y.

·    Is case study Y better explained by idea A or idea B?

·    Interview four people about life situation C. Use concept D to categorize their answers.

·    Use concept E to explain how the data on graph F relates to anecdote G.

·    Write or read a narrative about situation H. Use concept I to analyze the narrative (or the difference between the narrative you wrote and the narrative you read).