Please, tell me more!
At essaypop, we regularly engage with English and writing teachers from all over. One of the most common concerns we hear is students’ lack of meaningful commentary and analysis in their writing. While students are often able to state a claim and provide supporting evidence, they frequently struggle to make sense of that evidence for the reader. As teachers, we want students to analyze and interpret information for their audience, yet they rarely go beyond a brief, surface-level explanation, often offering just a sentence or two of commentary that doesn’t truly deepen the analysis.
One technique we’ve found effective in helping students deepen their analysis and reasoning is what we call the “this shows, this also shows” strategy. To illustrate how this approach works, let’s start with a simple claim-evidence-analysis paragraph. In this case, the prompt asked students to discuss the potential benefits of a dangerous or misunderstood animal. The example below was composed using the essaypop writing frame system, with the claim highlighted in red, the evidence in green, and the analysis in purple.
Here is how the writing appears as an MLA-formatted document. The system converts to this format in real-time.
As shown here, the student covers the essentials: presenting a claim, providing researched textual evidence, and attempting to connect the evidence to the claim. While the writing isn’t ineffective, it ultimately feels incomplete—leaving the reader wishing for greater depth. Like many developing writers, this student appears eager to finish the task quickly, which results in a response that is limited in scope and lacks the thoughtful analysis and personal perspective we hope to see.
When I encounter writing like this, I’ll often turn to the student and say, “This is an interesting explanation, but what else does the evidence show?” This question is frequently met with a puzzled look and a follow-up: “What do you mean?” At that point, I’ll clarify: “You’ve given me a few sentences about what the evidence means, but I’d like to know what else it might reveal. Could you take another look and explain further?”
Because we’re working within the essaypop platform, we can scaffold this revision by simply adding a second purple analysis frame to the writing area. This visual structure makes it much easier to indicate exactly where students should develop their additional analysis or explanation.
I like to explain to students that the first frame is for “this shows,” while the second frame is for “this also shows.” They don’t need to use these exact phrases, but the idea is that they’ll be expected to generate two distinct conclusions or perspectives based on the same piece of evidence. This approach not only lengthens the analysis section but also encourages deeper, more nuanced thinking. Here’s how the setup looks:
And here is what it looks like once the student has composed the second section of explanation/ analysis.
As you can see, the response is now more thorough and feels more complete. What I’ve consistently noticed is that the second round of analysis in this format often surpasses the first in both insight and originality. Typically, the initial analysis draws on the most obvious interpretations or simply summarizes the evidence, while the second effort pushes students to dig deeper and clarify what they truly want to convey and demonstrate. As a result, this subsequent commentary tends to be more reflective, nuanced, and meaningful.
And remember, students aren’t required to use the exact phrases “this shows” and “this also shows.” While these expressions form the basis of the strategy and work effectively, we always encourage sentence variety. That’s where the essaypop sentence starters become especially useful—offering students hundreds of options for introducing their commentary and analysis in diverse and engaging ways.
Summary
Incorporating the “this shows, this also shows” strategy helps students move beyond surface-level commentary and develop richer, more meaningful analysis in their writing. By prompting them to find multiple interpretations for the same evidence, we encourage deeper thinking and promote a more personal voice. When supported with tools like essaypop’s visual frames and sentence starters, students gain both structure and creative flexibility. Ultimately, this approach empowers young writers to engage critically with their ideas, resulting in writing that is more thoughtful, engaging, and academically rigorous.