3. Essays are a source of information.
Essays offer a perspective you may
or many not agree with.
Essays offer models to writers.
4. Essays teach writers:
1. How to handle information
2. How to structure the body of an essay
3. How to adapt your writing to a particular
audience
4. How to begin your essay, make transitions, and
end your essay
5. How to construct effective paragraphs and
achieve sentence variety
5. That comparison and contrast essays can be
organized in the subject-by-subject pattern
or point-by-point pattern,
That narratives are structured
chronologically, and
That cause and effect analyses are linear
and sequential.
6. Prior to reading an essay:
1. Look at any biographical information provided about
the author.
2. Look at the essay itself. What does the title tell you
about the subject? Try to figure out the
organizational pattern. Read the first sentence of
each paragraph to get a sense of what the essay is
about.
3. If there are questions at the end of the essay, read
them and use them to guide you while reading the
essay.
7. First read for the plot.
Then reread the essay actively. Ask
questions, look for answers, look for
organizational structure, concentrate on
themes or images, and concentrate on the
evidence presented to support the thesis.
Read each essay more than once.
8. How does the author structure the
essay?
How does the author select, organize,
and present information?
To whom is the author writing?
How does the audience influence the
essay?
9. Construct a brief outline of the essay.
Find the thesis of the essay. It may be
stated or implied.
10. If necessary, pause at the end of a paragraph
and reread it for a full understanding.
If an essay is difficult, you might need to
read it several times to answer questions
about the author’s thesis and purpose.
Focus on the essay as an example of a writer’s
craft. Look at the paragraphing. Look closely
at the introduction and conclusion. Also, pay
close attention to the author’s sentence
structure.
17. Narrative Essays: Telling a Story
In a narrative essay, the writer tells a story
about a real-life experience. While telling a
story may sound easy to do, the narrative
essay challenges students to think and write
about themselves. When writing a narrative
essay, writers should try to involve the
reader by making the story as vivid as
possible.
18. The fact that narrative essays are
usually written in the first person helps
engage the reader. “I” sentences give
readers a feeling of being part of the
story. A well-crafted narrative essay
will also build towards drawing a
conclusion or making a personal
statement.
19.
20. Descriptive Essays: Painting a Picture
A cousin of the narrative essay,
a descriptive essay paints a picture with
words. A writer might describe a person,
place, object, or even memory of special
significance. However, this type of essay
is not description for description’s sake.
21. The descriptive essay strives to
communicate a deeper meaning through
the description. In a descriptive essay,
the writer should show, not tell, through
the use of colorful words and sensory
details. The best descriptive essays
appeal to the reader’s emotions, with a
result that is highly evocative.
22.
23. Expository Essays: Just the Facts
The expository essay is an informative piece of writing
that presents a balanced analysis of a topic. In an
expository essay, the writer explains or defines a topic,
using facts, statistics, and examples. Expository writing
encompasses a wide range of essay variations, such as
the comparison and contrast essay, the cause and
effect essay, and the “how to” or process essay.
Because expository essays are based on facts and not
personal feelings, writers don’t reveal their emotions or
write in the first person.
24.
25. Persuasive Essays: Convince Me
While like an expository essay in its
presentation of facts, the goal of
the persuasive essay is to convince the
reader to accept the writer’s point of view or
recommendation. The writer must build a case
using facts and logic, as well as examples,
expert opinion, and sound reasoning. The
writer should present all sides of the
argument, but must be able to communicate
clearly and without equivocation why a certain
position is correct.
26.
27. Reading Comprehension is important
so that we understand what we
read.
One way to make sure we
comprehend what we read is to
retell what we read.
28. It’s important because it extracts
the essential information of a text.
The main data
The supporting details
29. In order to retell, you need to think about the
major elements of the text. These include:
1. Character
2. Setting
3. Problem
4. Attempts to resolve problem
5. Resolution
6. Outcome
30. You may use different tools to help you
retell the story.
1. Story Map
2.Graphic Organizer
31. I thought about the:
1. Characters
2. Setting
3. Problem
4. Resolution
Then, I used a story map to retell the story.
