ESSAY WRITING

STEP ONE:  Purpose
What's the purpose of this essay?  Is it to INFORM an audience, or to ARGUE a point?
If you're ARGUING, you need to pick a stance.  Pro or con?
*Avoid saying, "In my opinion."  We want PROOF, FACTS, and RESEARCH.  Not opinions.

STEP TWO:  Audience
Who will be grading your essay?  A teacher?  A friend?  How will that affect the language that you use?  Avoid immature words that dumb down your writing.
Examples of immature words:  stuff, like like like, 'cause, kinda, etc.

STEP THREE:  Decide on your three main points.  This should happen before you do ANY writing at all.

STEP FOUR:  Create an outline of what you will talk about.  It will look like this:

INTRO

Thesis statement

Three main points

BODY 

Transition word, topic sentence

Facts about your first point

BODY

Transition word, topic sentence

Facts about your second point

BODY

Transition word, topic sentence  

Facts about your last point

CONCLUSION

Three main points

Thesis statement

Now that you know what your three main points are, you can start filling in the outline with your information.  Start with the BODY paragraphs, then do your INTRO and CONCLUSION.  You can't do a proper intro without first knowing where you're going with your body paragraphs.

Spelling Patterns Resource

Spelling Patterns

Essays Intro

RULES

1- An essay should always have 5 paragraphs, UNLESS for some bizarre reason someone asks you for something different.  

If they say, "Write an essay on..." make it 5 paragraphs.  If they say, "Write a multi-paragraph essay about..." make it 5 paragraphs.

2- It looks like this:

INTRODUCTION

BODY

BODY

BODY

CONCLUSION

3- Your introduction tells the reader what you're going to talk about (thesis statement) without saying, "Today, I'm going to tell you about _________."  Cause that's lame.  

     It will also introduce your 3 MAIN POINTS.

4- Your body paragraphs tell us whatever it is you are trying to say.  They should be carefully organized (like our set of dresser drawers, remember???) so that every piece of information goes into its proper place.

5- Your conclusion is crafty.  You must repeat exactly what your intro said, but in a DIFFERENT WAY. So state what you're talking about (thesis statement) and your 3 MAIN POINTS, but don't use the same phrasing as your intro.  Confused yet??  I feel your pain...

Spelling Patterns

Which of these words does NOT fit in with the spelling pattern?

1. Receive
2. Perceive
3. Believe
4. Conceive

1. Autumn
2. Homonym
3. Column
4. Condemn

1. Precious
2. Gracious
3. Ambitious
4. Malicious

Essay Topics

These are the topics that I know for sure are on pioneer.uen.org:

knights       castles       monasteries       stained glass illuminated manuscripts       feudalism       crusades   weapons-trebuchet       knights-chivalry

These are the topics that MAY be on there:

plague       witches       clothing       Olde English     bugs      food      jewels (crown)

TAKEN:
Mark- witches and warlocks
Reagan- castles

BIG SIX Informational Essay Requirements

Required for your essay:
1 encyclopedia source
1 internet source
1 informational book source
1 bibliography (a page that lists where you got all your information)

Pioneer Online Worldbook can count as your encyclopedia source, even though it's on the internet.
Google Drive has an option for you to type in a word like "knights" and search for internet sources on that topic.
You may get your informational book here at Spring Creek's library, or any other library you have access to.

You may use more than 3 sources, but you need AT LEAST the ones mentioned above.

FINAL PRODUCT WILL BE:  A typed, polished, 5-paragraph essay which will use information from all of your three sources. You will cite those sources in a separate bibliography page, stapled at the back.

Essay Pretest Instructions

Using the information given to you, write a multi-paragraph essay arguing against keeping exotic cats as pets.

It would be wise to work in this order:
-Read all given material first
-Make a plan of what you're going to write
-Write your essay
-Review it for errors
-Hand it in

You have 60 minutes to complete this assignment.