1. Choosing, Mapping, and Narrowing a Topic
People write for many reasons, but always to communicate a message. Writing is always about something. We call that something the topic.
A topic could be anything. In school, the teacher often assigns writing topics. Even when topics are assigned, students usually have to narrow, or make, the topic into something more specific.
There are three steps at the topic stage.
1. Brainstorming ideas 2. Choosing a topic 3. Narrowing the topic

2. Step #1: Brainstorming Ideas
Brainstorming is a good way to find a topic to write about. Brainstorming is simply writing down all the ideas that you have about a topic. You can be alone or with a group to do this. After all the ideas are written down you can choose the best idea to use for your essay.

3. Step #2: Choosing a Topic
Here are some helpful hints for choosing a topic:
1. Choose a topic that is interesting to you. 2. Make sure there is enough information on your topic to do the assignment. 3. If you are working on a school assignment, make sure your topic fits the assignment.

4. Step #3 Narrowing the Topic
Once you have decided on a broad topic, you need to narrow the topic so that there is only one main idea. Mapping the topic will help you to narrow it so you can focus on one main idea.

5. Idea Map
A helpful way to narrow a topic is with an idea map. Let's look at the example idea map below. How do you think this idea map can help to narrow the topic you choose?

7. Sample Planning Web for Prewriting
Enthusiasm to Community
Competition
Brings
Culture to Community
Something fun and interesting
Native Pride
Native Games
Native Americans
Native Dances
Pow Wows
Bands

8. What is a thesis statement?
The thesis statement is a sentence. It may be the most important sentence in an essay. It normally appears in the introduction paragraph.
The thesis is like a preview that you see when you go to the movies. If you read the thesis statement alone, you should be able to tell what the entire essay will be about.
The thesis acts like a signpost for readers by telling them in what direction the essay will go. It has two important functions:
1. The thesis statement presents the main idea of the essay. 2. The thesis statement helps organize the essay.

9. Why do you need to have a thesis statement?
Having a thesis statement helps both the writer and reader.
For the writer, the thesis statement helps to organize and develop the ideas of the essay.
For the reader, the thesis provides a guide or map to the essay.

10. Steps to writing a thesis statement.
After you have brainstormed, chosen, and narrowed your topic you can begin to write your thesis statement.
1. State the main idea of the essay 2. Include information about the supporting details you will discuss. 3. Use specific language.

11. The following features make a good thesis statement:
1. The thesis statement is a complete sentence, but is not written as a question. 2. The writer's opinion is included in the thesis statement. 3. The thesis statement narrows a broad topic to something more specific that can be covered in a five-paragraph essay. 4. One main idea is expressed in the thesis statement. 5. The thesis statement helps to organize the essay.

12. An example thesis statement found in a paragraph written by a student.
To become a successful writer, students should follow some important steps. Just attending class is not enough. There is a need for a good background in grammar and vocabulary, skills in writing essays, and skills in editing. Learning to be a successful writer involves a lot of hard work.

13. What is an Outline? So far, we have done two things:
(1) Decided on a topic and (2) Written a thesis statement.
Now, we can talk about how you will decide how to organize the parts of your essay that you decided to use when you wrote your idea map. We will decide how to organize your essay using an outline.

14. Think of outlines as bookshelves
Think of outlines as bookshelves. They are the shelves on which you organize your ideas and sentences.
An outline can take many forms such as words, phrases, sentences and maps. We will talk about formal outlines here.
Formal outlines use Roman numerals for main topics. We alternate using letters and numbers for subtopics.

15. I. A. B. 1. 2. a. b.

16. You cannot have a one without at least a two or an "A" without at least a B. You should have an equal numbers of subtopics which are represented by A. and B., and 1. and 2. and a. and b.

17. Example In module two, Sarah mapped out things that she likes to do
Example In module two, Sarah mapped out things that she likes to do. Let's look at an example outline using what Sarah likes to do.

18. Title: Things Sarah likes to do
I. Sports
A. basketball
B. camping
C. hiking
D. rock climbing
II. Reading
A. Science fiction
B. Fantasy
C. Westerns
III. Writing
A. Children's books
B. Poetry
C. Fantasy
IV. Watching TV
A. college football
B. Seinfeld
C. CSI

19. 1. But, what can we do with this outline? 2. What does it tell us?
From this outline, we know that we need to eliminate one of the subtopics. Which one should we eliminate?

20. Since we learned that we should have an equal number of subtopics, we may want to eliminate a subtopic under sports. Sarah likes rock climbing the least, so we will eliminate that detail. Now, Sarah's new and improved outline looks like this. Notice that the details listed under sports now begins with basketball.

21. If Sarah had not done an outline before her paper she would have had an essay that was poorly organized.
I. Sports
A. basketball
B. camping
C. hiking
II. Reading
A. Science fiction
B. Fantasy
C. Westerns
III. Writing
A. Children's books
B. Poetry
C. Fantasy
IV. Watching TV
A. college football
B. Seinfeld
C. CSI

22. From the outline, we know:
Paragraph #1 would be the introduction. Body Paragraph I would be about sports. Body Paragraph II would be about reading. Body Paragraph III would be about writing. Body Paragraph IV would be about watching TV
Paragraph #6 would be the conclusion.