Writing
a competent essay takes work – and writing a good essay takes even more
work. The steps below should help make the process easier.
Organization
Here you'll work on planning out your ideas.
- After choosing question, re-read story/poem/novel
- Looking
over your annotations, class notes, and thinking about your topic, write a list of
different reasons which support your response to the topic.
- Construct thesis statement (see Thesis and Topic Sentences)
to organize your thoughts and guide readers through your argument.
- Type out quotes from the story/poem/novel that help illustrate your
divisions/thesis. Take your time with this: the selection of
appropriate quotes is central to a well-argued essay.
- Arrange the information with an eye towards matching quotes and ideas to your divisions: several options here
- Overview of methods
- Reasons and Evidence sheet: download the following for fill in the blank organizers PDF for hand writing; RTF for typing
- Copying and pasting thesis four times and breaking down into topic sentences
- Conventional outline: I. a) i)
- Concept Mapping: Idea Tree: see Basics of mind/concept mapping for more info. And for a video on this topic, click here.
Drafting
-
Using your rough outline/Reasons and Evidence sheet, start drafting
essay. Start with the thesis statement and then develop your body
paragraphs using the examples/arguments from reasons and evidence sheet
to back up your topic sentences.
| Remember
you can start your draft anywhere: once your thesis is set, you can
dive right into your body paragraphs and come back later for your
introduction. |
- Remember to form your body paragraphs around topic sentences (Thesis and Topic Sentences)
that make a claim (use your reasons as topic sentences), and then work
from quotes to back up your assertion (I often type out the quotes I
may use separately, then insert them as needed).
- Your
purpose is to explain the quotes in detail: not summarize what they
literally say, but how specific, individual words (and their
connotations), convey the point you are trying to make.
Explaining Yourself
-
After writing down quote, tell readers how it supports the topic
sentence/thesis by explaining – out loud – exactly how and why it does
indeed back up your argument.
- Break down an
important quote into parts and describe how the connotations/meanings
of individual words support your reading of the passage, and compare it
to other patterns/ideas or quotes in the story.
- Discuss how the tone (angry, sad, amused, sarcastic) of a particular passage contributes to the meaning.
|
-
Write introductory paragraph: answer the question "what are you talking
about?" Remember to include author's name and story title – underline
novels and long short stories, use quotation marks for short stories.
- Write conclusion paragraph: answer the question "what's it all mean?".
- Come up with five possible titles, and choose the best one. Make title a reflection of your own focus.
- You're done: take a break. When you come to class we'll start on revisions.
Yes this is formulaic; yes it can help; your call.
© David Bordelon |