Learning outcome 2

After reading many different chapters from the book “They Say, I Say”, I learned that it is important to use evidence from authentic texts to help support your claim when writing an essay. Authors, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein stress the importance of being able to select a quote, integrate it into your text, then explain the quote. I believe I demonstrate these skills multiple times in my showcased writing project number two. For example on page two, before I quote Kayla Lowe I introduced the quote by writing “She feels connected with her Dad by cooking and eating stuffed shells, as a family”. By doing this it helped integrate the quote by “setting the stage”. In “They Say, I Say” they gave the readers templates of ways to introduce the quote. The template I used to incorporate my quote was “Lowe closes their essay on a meaningful point, “By the end of it I can sit and eat with him and the rest of my family with a feeling of togetherness I wouldn’t trade for the world” (Lowe). After I incorporated my quote I made sure to explain the quote. I demonstrated this by writing, “You can tell by the quote how important stuffed shells are to Lowe because she wouldn’t trade the “feeling of togetherness for the world”.  Following the three simple steps, select, integrate, and explain helped me develop a strong essay and succeed in learning outcome two.