Essay writing

1.0 Writing Strategies Students write clear, coherent, and focused essays. The writing exhibits students’ awareness of audience and purpose. Essays contain formal introductions, supporting evidence, and conclusions. Students progress through the stages of the writing process as needed.

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• 1.0 Writing Strategies • Students write clear, coherent, and

focused essays. The writing exhibits students’ awareness of audience and purpose. Essays contain formal introductions, supporting evidence, and conclusions. Students progress through the stages of the writing process as needed.

Standard

• Organization and Focus

• 1.1 Create compositions that establish a controlling impression, have a coherent thesis, and end with a clear and well-supported conclusion.

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• 1.2 Establish coherence within and among paragraphs through effective transitions, parallel structures, and similar writing techniques.

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• 1.3 Support theses or conclusions with analogies, paraphrases, quotations, opinions from authorities, comparisons, and similar devices.

The Introduction

• The introduction has a “hook of grabber” to catch the reader’s attention. Some “grabbers” include:

Shocking Statement

• Opening with a strong statement:

• (17 year old found stuffed in Bath, England)

• 17 year old found stuffed in Bath!

• Pun- play on words

Quotation

• Opening with a quotation:

• The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive. By Robert Heinlein

• Truth is stranger than fiction by Mark Twain

Quotes by Dahl

• I am only 8 years old, I told myself. No little boy of 8 has ever murdered anyone. It's not possible.

•A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.

Anecdote/ “little story”

• Opening with and anecdote: an anecdote, “little story,” can provide an amusing and attention getting opening if it is short and to the point. (The little boy went to the 2:00 show. At 6:00 p.m. his mom contacted the police when he didn’t’ come home. He was found buried under a freeway Twenty-four years later.”

Fact/statistic

• Sometimes a statistic or fact will add emphasis or interest to your topic. It may be wise to include the item’s authoritative source.

• MISSING CHILDREN:• · 797,500 children (younger than 18) were

reported missing in a one-year period of time studied resulting in an average

• of 2,185 children being reported missing each day.

Rhetorical question

• Opening with a question: (What does a serial killer look like?)

Link, bridge, transition to thesis

• Caught your interest? Read “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl.

• In the case of “The Landlady” fiction is stranger than truth.

• Like this little boy, the protagonist, Billy Weaver, in “The Landlady” will never be heard from again.

• Billy Weaver is just another statistic in the short story “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl.

• A store that sold stuffed animals once had a stuffed man for sale. When questioned about it, the owner insisted it was fake but it looked so real. What a terrific place to hide a body. Just like in the short story“ The Landlady” by Roald Dahl, the murderer preserves the body for eternity.

Thesis- tells what the essay is about and is the last sentence of

the introduction.• Roald Dahl expertly employs the

literary devices of foreshadowing and irony to create suspense and to add a humorous tone to the story.

Example of introduction

What does a serial killer look like? What does their house look like? Are they a kind, welcoming old lady? Or are they a cruel looking man with a gun hidden somewhere? Most people probably chose the latter, but this is not the case for Billy Weaver in Roald Dahl’s short story, “The Landlady”. Roald Dahl expertly employs the literary devices of foreshadowing and irony to hint at the untimely death of Billy Weaver.

Body Paragraphs

• Topic sentence• Concrete detail/evidence• Commentary • Commentary• Concrete detail/evidence• Commentary• Commentary• conlusion

Concrete details

• Evidence

• Quotes

• Paraphrase

• Fact

• Statistics

• Expert examples

• anecdotes

Commentary

• Your analysis of the concrete detailWhat does the concrete detail show

This showsThis hints atThis provesThis conveysThis suggests

Conclusion sentence

• Gives a finished feeling to the paragraph

• It may lead to the next paragraph

• Ex. Not only does the author use irony to add humor, foreshadowing is also employed to…

Conclusion paragraph

• Step one:

• Restate thesis in an original way.

Sentence #2

• Answers how or why this is true.

Sentence #3

• Give advice, or a recommendation, or a universal application on the subject.

Sentence #4

• Go full circle. Relates back to your introduction.

Conclusion paragraph

• ____ Restate thesis in an original way.

• _____ Answers how or why this is true.

• ______ Give advice, or a recommendation, or a universal application on the subject.

• _____ Go full circle. Relates back to your introduction.