(WW2) Lesson Topic 1: Writing Review

Lesson Topic 1: Writing Review

The Essay

In literature, the essay serves as a way for students to reveal their own thoughts or ideas regarding a certain text. Throughout middle school, high school, and college, each individual subject area requires students to broadcast their ideas in the form of an essay.

Many genres of essays exist: expository, descriptive, narrative, and argumentative. The type of essay chosen depends upon the desired topic of the writer.

Types of Essays The expository essay requires writers to explain or inform the reader about a certain subject. Writers can create a comparison and contrast essay that reveals the similarities and differences regarding a topic. They can also define an idea or show cause and effect within an essay. Descriptive essays provide vivid imagery describing an object, person, place, experience, emotion, or situation. With descriptive essays, the writer becomes an artist by painting pictures with words. Narrative essays appear as though the writer is telling a story. These types of essays can be creative writing, but they can also involve personal experiences from the writer's life to get a point across. Persuasive essays are also known as argumentative essays. With this type of essay, you will create a paper that argues your opinion about a topic or idea. These essays need support to provide your ideas are correct and believable.

 

Brainstorming

There are many ways to brainstorm, and one person's way of brainstorming might not be the way you brainstorm best. Brainstorming happens when we, as writers, sit down and think about what we are going to write, and how we are going to put all of our ideas together in an essay. Some ways to brainstorm include webs, lists, or outlines.

If you learn best by seeing pictures, a web might be the best way for you to brainstorm. In the center of the map, write your topic and draw a circle around it. When you think of your main idea, or thesis statement, draw a big circle around it. Then, when you come up relating ideas, write them down, draw a circle around them, and draw a line to show how they connect to the topic in the center and/or the other ideas you have written down.

An example of a web brainstorm. In this example, the main argument, or thesis, is at the center of the web. Supporting arguments branch from the thesis, with statements that support those arguments underneath. It is arranged as a web, a good way to organize thoughts for visual learners.

Some people learn best by listing out all of their ideas. Begin your list with your main idea—your thesis statement. With your main idea at the top, you will know what to focus on as you brainstorm. Writing out your topic helps you focus on it. Then, list the ideas that relate to your main idea in the order that they come to you. You can make multiple lists to find supporting points for each of your ideas. These supporting points will become your paragraphs.

For example:

An example of a list when brainstorming The thesis statement, or main idea, is at the top of the page. Main supporting arguments come after the thesis. Each of the main supporting arguments is supported by statements in bullet form.

Organizing

 Like we did with brainstorming, putting similar ideas together in a paragraph creates organization in an essay, and the essay will make more sense to the reader. An essay is made up of several paragraphs. Paragraphs are groups of lines that share similar ideas. Each paragraph should start with a topic sentence. The topic sentence tells what the whole paragraph will be about. Now, be careful not to confuse the thesis statement and the topic sentence.

Remember that the thesis statement tells the reader what the whole essay will be about, but the topic sentence tells the reader what a particular paragraph will be about. Then, paragraphs need to include support and end with a conclusion sentence. You will end up having a group of sentences that can go in the type of outline below to create a paragraph:

Paragraphs are groups of lines that share similar ideas. Each paragraph should start with a topic sentence. The topic sentence tells what the whole paragraph will be about. Remember that the thesis statement tells the reader what the whole essay will be about, but the topic sentence tells the reader what a particular paragraph will be about. Then, paragraphs need to include support and end with a conclusion sentence.

 

Support

In this illustration, a light-skinned individual with short dark hair peers at a document on a lectern with a magnifying glass. The person wears a long-sleeved trench coat. It looks like the person is in a library or office. Support is the evidence that writers use from other sources to prove what they are saying is true. You may also hear people refer to support as proof or quotes. If you write about how nice a character appears in the novel, you would need to go back to the novel and find a sentence that reveals the character doing something nice for another person or a sentence where people discuss the kindness of the character. Any information from the novel that you find to back up, or prove, your idea is considered support.

You will find proof and support from both primary and secondary sources. Remember that sources are the various books, essays, and other places a writer finds support for an essay. The primary source is the main work of literature a writer focuses on and uses for an essay.

For example, if you were writing about the characters in our novel, your primary source would be Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. The secondary sources are the various texts about the primary source that a writer uses to find support for an essay. For example, I might look for books or articles where other people have written about the characters in our novel.

Remember that there are rules to finding secondary sources. You never want to search for information on the internet and use the first source that appears without making sure the source is legitimate. You will learn more about reliable sources later in the course. 

Once you have found support and written your essay, each source will be listed at the end of your essay in what we call a Works Cited page. The Works Cited page must be set up in a certain format.

Reliable sources on the internet might be difficult to find. Students that have access to Gale and Galileo can use the various reference articles appearing on the subscription sites. However, aside from the articles on Gale and Galileo, only certain websites are consistently trustworthy. Educational and governmental websites are considered dependable because the reputation of the schools and governments are at stake, so they try to only publish trustworthy material.

Make sure to look at the very end of the link to determine the ending. The following are different types of websites that can be sources:

Websites that can be sources: .edu: Produced by an educational organization and generally considered reliable .us: Produced by public schools and local state government agencies and generally considered reliable .gov: Produced by a government organization and generally considered reliable .org: Produced by a profit or nonprofit organization and generally considered reliable. Use caution. .com/.net: Produced by anyone and while it could be reliable, it lends itself to the questioning or authority. Use extreme caution.

 

[CC BY 4.0] UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED | IMAGES: LICENSED AND USED ACCORDING TO TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION