?????Have you ever gotten in the

middle of writing something, then you can’t think of what to say next? You just kind of run out of steam?

DRAPES will help you plan your writing so you never run out of things to say! It’s what we language arts

teachers call“elaboration.”

DRAPES

WRIT

ING W

ITH

ELABORATION

D

DIALO

GUE

Examples:

"In a recent interview, Doctor Smith said 'Hats help prevent disease.’”

"Doctor Smith said that hats are good for people!'"

USE DIALOGUE

Use a professional's opinion. This could be anyone, such as a doctor, your parents, or The President of the United States. You can use either a direct quote or reword the statement into the sentence. If you use a quote, be sure to put it in quotation marks.

R

RHETORICAL

QUESTION

Use rhetorical questions. These are questions which can make the reader think, but not one they have to answer. The idea is the statement makes the reader think, and if it is at the beginning of an essay, they will probably want to read on. These are good to have in an introductory or conclusion paragraph.

Example:

"How could someone refuse a free television?".

USE A RHETORICAL QUESTION

A

ANALOGIE

S

Use similes and metaphors to emphasize your point. A simile compares two things with "like" or "as“.

A metaphor says that something is something else.

Examples:

"The water is as clear as glass".

"The mean dog is a demon".

USE ANALOGIES

P

PERSONAL

EXPERIENCE

Write about something that has happened to you that is related to the essay's main idea. The experience should be strong enough to bring the reader to agree with you.

Example:

If you are writing about why divorce is terrible, you might say that you had divorced parents, and this made you depressed.

USE PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

E

EXAMPLE

S

Write examples of your position of the essay to make it look good, and use example which make opposing positions look bad, especially in a persuasive essay. Examples and personal experiences often are written together.

Example:

For instance, failure to brush your teeth will lead to tooth decay. However, regular brushing will give you healthier teeth, saving you money at the dentist office.

USE EXAMPLES

S

STATIS

TICS

Use percentages and ratios to support your position. Remember to tell where these statistics came from.

Example:

"According to a recent poll by students at Harvard, hats are 16% more popular than watches on campus."

USE STATISTICS

NOW THAT YOU KNOW DRAPES,

YOU ARE READY TO WRITE…

WRITE A PARAGRAPH BASED ON ONE OF THE OPTIONS BELOW. USE DRAPES TO HELP YOU ELABORATE.

1.My favorite thing to do on the weekend is…

2.My favorite meal is…3.The perfect job for me is…4.If I could travel anywhere, I would

go to…

ORGANIZE YOUR THOUGHTS (IDEAS)

Use a sheet of blank, lined notebook paper to write down your thoughts. Each paragraph should have its own section on the paper. Every section except for the introduction should have the main idea of the paragraph and two or three DRAPES components. The introduction section should contain the topic of the essay, the reasons to back it up, and two or three DRAPES as well. There are six parts required to fully utilize the DRAPES, one for each letter:

WRITE YOUR INTRODUCTION

Write the introduction. The introduction is the first paragraph. This should do a few things:

Interest the reader. Draw the reader into your writing. The first sentence should be responsible for this. Often, a rhetorical question is the first sentence in an article because it is so effective in making the reader think and wonder what the topic is exactly about. Another good option is to use a famous quotation.

State the topic. Be sure that you give the exact topic or problem that the essay discusses. This should be stated in the second paragraph, after the reader has been drawn in. They are then will never be left guessing what exactly you are writing of.

INTRODUCTION CONTINUED…

Give your position. Leave the reader in no doubt of what your position is on a topic. This is particularly important in a persuasive essay.

Contain sentences using the planned DRAPES. You have already planned the DRAPES you will use, so write them down as sentences in the paragraph. Rhetorical Questions and Analogies work particularly well for an introduction.

WRITE THE MAIN PARAGRAPHS

These are the paragraphs in between the introduction and conclusion. Each paragraph provides support for one of the reasons you wrote of in the introduction. When writing these paragraphs, remember to:

Stay on topic. Keep all of your information related to the essay's topic. Also, only write about the single reason the paragraph is supporting. You should only write about one idea in each paragraph. Do not write about reason two in paragraph one, or reason one in paragraph two.

Use DRAPES. Again, implement the DRAPES that you planned into sentences in the paragraph. Dialogue, Analogies, Personal Experiences, and Statistics are the best components to use in the main paragraphs.

WRITE YOUR CONCLUSION

Write a conclusion. The conclusion should contain everything the introduction said, except in different words and in a different order. If you used an analogy in the introduction, use a different analogy in the conclusion, if you had a rhetorical question in the first sentence, you may want to restate it as the last sentence, etc.