And It All Comes Down to This: The Essay

1. And It All Comes Down to This: The Essay Eng 050

2. The Essay • Everything we’ve worked for this semester has come down to this: the essay. If this class has done itsjob, it has made you more comfortable with writing (at least a little), and prepared you for future classes in which writing is involved (a fair amount of them). • First we’re going to look at what an essay consists of. Some of you have done quite a bit of this already in class, but it should come full circle here.

3. The Essay • First, we’ll work on recognizing what an essay is. • Essentially, an essay is a non-fiction work about real-life subjects as opposed to made-up subjects (fiction). • Essays generally focus on one specific subject, have a single purpose, and target a particular audience (mostly a general audience). • The mode (argument, cause and effect, compare and contrast, etc.) of an essay will differ depending on the requirements of the essay.

4. The Essay • A successful essay will get a reaction from the readers that its author hopes for, and tried to achieve in its content • Essays may differ in terms of design, organization, and content, but they share certain features that distinguish them from other types of writing • The way it looks on the page • Title • Multiple paragraphs • Thesis statement in introduction paragraph

5. The Essay • Let’s read the essay on page 349-350. Take note of the structure: it has a thesis statement (the twin sister of the topic sentence) that introduces ideas, and each subsequent paragraph expands on those ideas. The concluding paragraph (twin brother of the concluding sentence) wraps it up to a logical conclusion. • Now let’s move onto the idea of critically reading essays so we see how they are structured, see what works and what we like about them (and what we don’t), and analyze their effectiveness.

6. The Essay • As we discussed way way back at the beginning of the semester, reading and writing are connected; the more reading you do, the better a writer you will be. • When you read an essay, pay attention to both the content (what the writer is saying) and the form (how he or she is saying it, including the sentence structure, language, idea development, and organization). • Ideally, you should read an essay three times; that’s impractical for us in class. But those so inclined may want to consider reading these essays outside of class.

7. The Essay • But again, as we discussed way way back at the beginning of the semester, you must first prepare to read. • It’s like when you choose a book or a magazine at an airport. You want to skim through it, find out something about the author, consider what it is about, etc. • Like with our airport book example, consider • The title of the essay • The author (and any background information given about the author) • The content

8. The Essay • Consider the essay we just read (“Fidelity”), for example. What parts of the essay touched you the most? Do you have any examples of someone who never gave up on you (or someone you were close to)? Relating to the material helps you identify with it, and understand it better. • Mosaics outlines a reading strategy that I think will help expand your understanding of the essay, and that it would be good for us to adapt.

9. The Essay • Let’s go over the following questions that are part of the strategy • Considering purpose and audience • As you read the essay, what do you think is the author’s main purpose? • Who do you think is the essay’s main audience?

10. The Essay • Discovering how the essay works • What is the subject of the essay • What is the thesis statement (more on this later) • Does the thesis state the author’s main position on the subject? • How does the writer capture the reader’s attention in the intro? • Is the strategy effective? Why or why not? • How many body paragraphs does the author include in the essay?

11. The Essay • Let’s take a moment to examine the essay’s structure as we go over it paragraph by paragraph. What is the topic sentence for each paragraph? • Paragraph one: “A cause needn’t be grand, it needn’t impress a crowd, to be worthy of our commitment.” • Paragraph two: “”Never giving up is a trait we honor in athletes, in soldiers, in climbers marooned by avalanches, in survivors of shipwrecks, in patients recovering from severe injuries.” • Paragraph three: “Striking examples of perseverance catch our eye, and rightly so.”

12. The Essay • Paragraph four: “When Jesse was in sixth grade, early in the school year, his teacher was diagnosed as having breast cancer.” • Paragraph five: “I have a friend who builds houses Monday through Friday for people who can pay him, and then builds other houses on Saturday, with Habitat for Humanity, for people who can’t pay him.” • Paragraph six: “There is a man in our town who has been fighting the U.S. Forest Service for two decades, trying to persuade them to quit clear cutting, quit selling timber at a loss, quit breaking their own rules in the Hoosier National Forest.”

13. The Essay • Now back to discovering how the essay works. • Does the author use enough specific details to communicate his message? • Do the sentences in each paragraph support the topic sentence? • Is the essay organized logically? Give an example. • Do the sentences and paragraphs move smoothly and logically from one to the next? Give an example of how. • What strategy does the author use to conclude the essay? Is the strategy effective?

14. The Essay • How does the title relate to the author’s thesis statement? • Is the title effective? Why or why not? • Did you find the essay interesting? • Okay, now let’s reread and answer some more questions on it. This first reread will help you delve more deeply into the subject. • Thinking critically about the content • Name the three causes that Sanders discusses in his essay.

15. The Essay • Have you or someone you know ever done any selfless acts like the people in this essay? If so, what were they? • What does the author mean when he says “Any community worth living in must have a web of people faithful to good work and to one another, or that community will fall apart.” • Thinking critically about purpose and audience • What do you think Sanders’s purpose is in this essay? • What type of audience do you think would appreciate this essay? • Who in the essay did you admire the most?

16. The Essay • Thinking critically about essays • Does Sanders give enough examples to convince you of his main points? • What is Sanders’s thesis in this essay? • Does each topic sentence in this essay support the thesis statement? • Second rereading • For the purposes of this class, we won’t do a second read. But if you did, you’d want to ask yourself questions that go beyond just what is written. Jot down your own questions about the text, not just the ones the book references. Think if you like this kind of essay, if it inspires you, and if it wants to make you read more of the same.

17. The Essay • Now that we understand what an essay is, and how to read one critically, let’s get to the real heart of the essay. • It is not as different from the paragraph as you might think. It has the same basic elements, though with different terms. • Topic Sentence (Paragraph) = Introduction with Thesis Statement (Essay) • Examples, Details and Support (Paragraph) = Body Paragraphs (Essay) • Concluding Sentence (Paragraph) = Concluding Paragraph (Essay)

18. The Essay • Essentially, this is the basic structure of an essay. • Introduction paragraph.—This introduces your topic, and also features a “thesis statement,” which, like the topic sentence, is the “roadmap” of the essay. It should include three points that you are going to discuss. Everything you write in the thesis statement should be included in your essay • Body paragraphs—You’ll have one paragraph for each point you are making. In the five-paragraph model, you’ll have three body paragraphs • Concluding paragraph—This paragraph wraps up your ideas and draws conclusions. The first sentence of the concluding paragraph is essentially a restatement of your thesis statement.

19. The Essay • Preparing to write—Just like with the paragraph, you need to choose a topic, gather your thoughts, take notes, brainstorm, etc., before you start writing. • See how it is not that much different than what you’ve been doing already? It’s the same…only longer. • The prompt the book gives us is to write about someone that we admire greatly, so we’ll follow the student example. Pay attention to technique and brainstorming.

20. The Essay • We’re going to follow the steps of the student writer referred to in the book. • “Jolene” is the student writer the book refers to. In the book, she decides to write about the person she admires the most—her dad. But, since essays don’t write themselves (wouldn’t that be great!), she needs to do some brainstorming. • But before we get into that, we need to discuss a very important aspect of the essay, and that is narrowing your topic.

21. The Essay • Narrowing the topic? Yes. See, you need to narrow down your topic to something more specific so that your essay has a distinct focus. • Not narrowing your topic makes it too easy for you to bite off more than you can chew in terms of writing. • For example, say I wanted to write an essay about movies. Movies is an extremely broad topic. If I decided to do that as a topic, my essay will be a big mess, because I can’t possibly write a general essay about movies and cover them properly. • I need a focal point, an angle, something specific enough that I could write an essay about, and do it justice.

22. The Essay • So we’ve decided that movies is too big a topic. So I need to narrow it down. • Romantic comedies. Nope, still too broad. Romantic comedies have been around since movies began. That’s like 100+ years of movie making I’d have to cover in one small essay. So I need to narrow it further. • Okay…romantic comedies of ‘90s. Still too big, because many were made in that decade. I need to narrow it down further. I know! Choose a big romantic comedy star of that decade. Focus on just that actress or actor, and just that decade. • The romantic comedies of Meg Ryan in the 1990s. Or the romantic comedies of Tom Hanks in the 1990s. • Now I’ve got it! The teaming of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in romantic comedies in the 1990s!

23. The Essay • Now back to Jolene. She starts brainstorming on writing an essay about her dad. She jots down a number of random phrases that pop into her head, with the idea that she’ll see a pattern in what she writes. • My dad; the city; train ride; excitement; feeling lost; excitement; feeling lost; looking successful; my friends don’t care; my dad was special; meeting him; just the beginning • She sees a pattern in these notes, and decides to write about the time she first met her dad.

24. The Essay • Essentially Jolene is the in process of narrowing down the topic of her essay (just like we did with movies). She could write an essay about her dad, but she needs a focus because a general essay about him would have too much territory to cover. So she’s going to write about her father, but is using a specific time they had together as her focal point. • Now that she’s got her topic, she needs to start planning how to go about writing it.

25. The Essay • She knows she wants to write about meeting her father for the first time, and has also decided that she wants to build up to the event by keeping her reader’s guessing. She considers the best way of doing this, and decides on using the narrative as a way of getting her story across. To help her write it, she starts breaking it down • Subject: Meeting her father for the first time • Purpose: To share the excitement of meeting her father for the first time. • Audience: Her classmates (general audience)

26. The Essay • Thesis statement—The importance of doing a proper thesis statement cannot be underestimated. Just like the topic sentence was the roadmap of your paragraph, the thesis statement is the roadmap of the essay. • When writing your thesis statement, begin by stating your position on the topic. This sentence moves you from the broad topic of your essay to your own feeling or perspective on the topic.

27. The Essay • Sample thesis statement: Training your golden retriever is important for your dog’s safety and for your enjoyment of each other. • In this case, the writer states a position (that training golden retrievers is important) and gives the reasons for that position (safety and enjoyment). • Sample thesis statement: Many great romantic comedies were made in the 1990s, but this period stands out in that genre due to the charm and chemistry of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, who starred in two of the most famous from that decade. • As you can see, I’ve stated a position (that the romantic comedies of the 1990s stand out because of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks), and gives my reasons (that Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks had charm and chemistry).

28. The Essay • Now that we’ve (hopefully) gotten the gist of the thesis statement, let’s move on to the other important aspects of an essay. • Construct an introduction that leads up to your thesis statement. • Unlike with the paragraph and the topic sentence, you need to craft an introduction before you launch into your thesis statement. • The introduction should capture a reader’s attention. • They typically begin with general information, and then, like a funnel, narrow down to the thesis statement.

29. The Essay • There’s several effective ways to beginning an introductory paragraph. • A quotation • Tell a story (brief story) that relates to your topic • Provide a revealing fact, statistic or definition • Offer an interesting comparison • Ask an intriguing question • Think of it as though you were watching Law & Order. They always start with the yuppies saying something supposedly amusing before they stumble onto the body. It’s a way of leading a reader gradually into the story. • Let’s read Jolene’s introduction on page 365. Here she’s trying to grab the reader’s attention and lead them gently to her main story.

30. The Essay • Develop as many supporting paragraphs as necessary to explain and support your thesis statement • This is not unlike what you do with the paragraph. Remember how you figure out the points you want to make, and dedicate a sentence or two toward it? In this case, you dedicate a paragraph toward each point. • Say I was doing an essay on Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movies. I need several paragraphs to explain why their movies were so good. Before I do that though, I need to decide upon what points I’m going to cover. I will then dedicate a paragraph to each point.

31. The Essay • So what points do I want to make? Brainstorming would really come in handy here. • Both attractive in an ordinary, relatable sort of way. • Both had good comic timing, and had been in successful comedies in the 1980s. • They were also costars in “Joe Vs. The Volcano” from the 1980s. • Both were major Hollywood stars, and so their movies had big budgets and the best writers and directors. • I think these are good points to go on. So what’s my next step? • I write a paragraph dedicated to each point to explain why their movies are such standouts. • To support my points, I could use as evidence quotes from the movies, quotes from the actors themselves, quotes from critics at the time, and box-office statistics.

32. The Essay • I think these are good points to go on. So what’s my next step? • I write a paragraph dedicated to each point to explain why their movies are such standouts. • To support my points, I could use as evidence quotes from the movies, quotes from the actors themselves, quotes from critics at the time, and box-office statistics. • In the case of Jolene, she’s developed several points of her own she wants to cover. • Research on her father • Traveling to see her father • Trying to locate her father • Finally connecting with her father

33. The Essay • She will then dedicate body paragraphs solely to each of those points. • Body paragraph on how she researched her father • Body paragraph on traveling to see her father • Body paragraph on trying to locate her father • Body paragraph on how she connected with her father • The next step in the essay process is to write a concluding paragraph • This is the final paragraph of your essay, and it needs to wrap up the topic (just as your concluding sentence wrapped up your topic).

34. The Essay • Writing a concluding paragraph should summarize the main points of the essay and remind readers of your thesis statement. • Generally, you lead off the concluding paragraph with a restatement of your thesis statement. • You can then use one of the following methods to bring it all together. • Ask a question that provokes new ideas—Not recommended for a research essay, but fine for something narrative. • Predict the future • Offer a solution to the problem • Call the reader to action • Let’s read Jolene’s concluding paragraph.

35. The Essay • The final step in constructing your essay is to choose a title. • It’s easy enough to slap on a title at the last minute, but taking care with the wording, and making it meaningful, will make your essay really standout. • In the student example, Jolene chooses her title carefully. She doesn’t want to give her whole story away, so she avoids using the word “father” in the title. So instead, she focuses on her journey in general. She chooses “My First Encounter with the City.”

36. The Essay • If I were choosing a title for my essay on Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movies, I might go with something like this: “Twinkle Twinkle Mega Stars.” • Okay, that’s not the best! But wouldn’t it make you read the essay? • Questions? We’re not done with the essay, of course, but did this clarify things?