Mastering MEL-Con: Enhance Your Essay Writing Skills

1. MEL-Con: Improving your writing one paragraph at a time

2. Objectives: • Explain the basic format of MEL-Con paragraphs • View student-authored MEL-Con paragraphs • Discuss how to use MEL-Con in an essay MELCon

3. What the heck is MEL-Con? • Why should I care about MEL-Con? • What happens if I REFUSE to use MEL-Con? Introduction

4. M = Main Idea (Topic Sentence) • E = Evidence (Support/Examples/Proof) • L = Link (Explains how support proves main idea) • Con = Concluding Sentence (summarizes main idea and evidence) The Building Blocks of MEL-Con

5. What is a main idea? • First sentence of paragraph (topic sentence) • Answer the question • Question: Should high school students have to write MEL-Con paragraphs? • Main Idea: • High school students should have to write MEL-Con paragraphs. OR • High school students should not have to write MEL-Con paragraphs. Writing Main Ideas

6. What is a transition? • Each piece of evidence should begin with a transition • Something that connects one piece of information to another • Introduces new information • 3 Types of Transitions: • Beginner (NOOOOOOOO) • Intermediate (Yes!) • Advanced (WOW!!) Using Transitions

7. What is evidence? • Something to support main idea • Evidence (Support/Examples/Proof/Direct Quote) • Example: High school students should have to write MEL-Con paragraphs. To begin, writing MEL-Con paragraphs helps students organize and focus their ideas. Writing about Evidence

8. What is a link? • You must have a link for each piece of evidence • Links must fully explain how evidence proves the main idea • One link is always at least 2 sentences • Sentence one should further explain the example or provide more specific details • Sentence two should explain how the evidence supports or proves the main idea Writing Links

9. High school students should have to write MEL-Con paragraphs. To begin, writing MEL-Con paragraphs helps students organize and focus their ideas. Average students are often intimidated by writing essays because they are not sure how to organize their thoughts in a logical order. MEL-Con provides students with a strategy to follow to make sure that they are clear and thorough when explaining their ideas. Example

10. What is a conclusion? • The final part of your perfect paragraph • Should restate the main idea in a different way and include a summary of the evidence • One or two sentences Writing Concluding Sentences

11. High school students should have to write MEL-Con paragraphs. To begin, writing MEL-Con paragraphs helps students organize and focus their ideas. Average students are often intimidated by writing essays because they are not sure how to organize their thoughts in a logical order. MEL-Con provides students with a strategy to follow to make sure that they are clear and thorough when explaining their ideas. Because writing MEL-Con paragraphs helps students write clearly and intelligently, it is necessary for all essay writers to use this writing format. Example

12. At least how many sentences should be in a basic MEL-Con Paragraph?

13. Underline the main idea • Place a star next to the evidence • Place a box around links • Circle transitions • Draw a squiggly line under the concluding sentence Sample Mel-Con