As mentioned in our last post, TEEL stands for: Topic Sentence, Evidence, Explain, Link.
What is Evidence?
Evidence is the part where students present their evidence to support their Topic Sentence! This section is where students draw from their understanding of the text and show off their knowledge. Evidence can include:
- quotes
- stage directions
- camera angles
- music
- costuming
- acting
- staging
- lighting
- cinematic devices
- poetic devices
There are a few guidelines that we find helpful for our students:
1. It should be 1 sentence only
We suggest limiting the Evidence section to 1 sentence because if students are allowed to write multiple sentences, often it becomes a storytelling exercise. Students get sucked into the trap of writing about what the characters did and why and what they said in reaction, and forget that this is not analysis!
Here is a weak Evidence section:
In All The Light We Cannot See, Werner has no other prospects than to work in the mines like his father. He is trapped in his destiny and feels scared that he will be stuck there for the rest of his life, when he wants to life a freer life.
We can rewrite this by shortening it into one sentence:
At the beginning of All The Light We Cannot See, Werner is ‘trapped’ with the looming prospect of descending into the mines, which draws him in like ‘insects toward a lighted trap’ in following his fathers footsteps.
By condensing the 2 sentences into 1, there is now more momentum for the student launch into an analysis of the evidence. The revised sentence now acts as the first half of a thought and begs the question: so what? So what that Werner feels trapped and drawn? What does this show us?
2. The evidence provided should be specific
By ‘specific’, we mean that we should be able to give it a page number, a line number, or timestamp. This forces the student to engage with specific parts of the text, whether it is the diegetic music, a quote, or an enjambment.
Here is another weak Evidence sentence:
In The Hate Race, Maxine confesses that she bullied Bhagita because she wanted to be accepted by those who bullied her, and this gave her power that she did previously lacked.
We can strengthen this Evidence by including quotes:
In The Hate Race, Maxine inflicts the pain she suffered on Bhagita by calling her a ‘curry muncher’ in order to be accepted by those who called her ‘blacky’, and the resulting recognition she received as ‘Maxine’ makes her feel ‘powerful’ in ways she had not before.
The inclusion of the quotes give legitimacy to the student’s writing. Without the quotes, it reads as a summary and some students will continue that position of talking about what Maxine does and how she feels. With the addition of quotes, even though the revised sentence is still a summary of events, the student’s writing sounds knowledgeable and insightful.
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