Purpose

For our first Spotlight, write a paragraph that describes an experience you had that changed the way you think or feel about poverty.

Content

For our first Spotlight, our paragraph will do two things: it will briefly tell a story, and it will also explain what that story means.

The first part requires us to explain the details of the event. We’ll need to talk about things like where we were, who we were with, and (most importantly) what happened. We’re not just talking about an opinion or an idea; we’re describing an experience, so we should have a story to tell.

The second part requires us to explain how that event affected our thinking and understanding of what poverty means. Because we’re describing a change, we’ll have to show our readers something about how things were before, and how they were after.

Where It Fits

Some of our Paragraph Spotlights will only work in specific places in our writing, but this one might go several different places in our Writing Project. Some of us might want to use this paragraph as an introduction, using the story to ease into our ideas about poverty. Others of us might want to use this as an example supporting our main claim. Another possibility would be to use this format to challenge a misconception you think your readers might have.

In short, there are a lot of places this might fit, and so you’ll have to do some thinking about where this paragraph will best support your paper.