essay support + reasoning

More often than not, our writers treat evidence like loose puzzle pieces... unsure which ones belong together, which ones support what point, or how any of it connects back to the claim.

Most students don’t struggle with body paragraphing because they lack ideas — they struggle because they can’t see how ideas fit together. 

with context that grounds the issue
a claim that holds everything together
branches of reasoning that are each distinct
evidence that grows in the right place
analysis that shines meaning onto each idea

Once students build the full 'Tree', they finally understand what a strong argument is — not because we told them, but because they constructed it themselves. 

The Tree of Reasoning strategy was built to fix that.
It gives students what their writing has always lacked...

a visible structure.

Instead of thinking of arguments as paragraphs to fill, students begin to literally SEE them as systems —

As a result, their writing feels disorganized and shallow...no matter how many times we remind them to explain and extend their points!

with context that grounds the issue

a claim that holds everything together

branches of reasoning that are each distinct

evidence that grows in the right place

analysis that shines meaning onto each idea.