COMPOSITION 9 The Writing Process

One of the last steps in our curriculum is to discuss exactly how to write a proper essay. This will take a while and require quite a bit of work. Be ready. The Last Step

Different Kinds of Essays  Not all essays are the same. There are four major kinds of essays that we will discuss, as these are the major ones that you will be responsible for writing during your time at Hayes. Please note that these categories are not mutually exclusive, meaning that the categories may sometimes combine and bleed into each other, depending on what your particular assignment may be.  Personal Essay  Comparison/Contrast Essay  Persuasive Essay  Literary Analysis

Personal Essay  Follow along on text page 49.  A personal essay recollects a particular time or event in your life in order to show what you have learned from the experience(s).  It entertains and informs the reader in order to get them to think about you and your particular story.  The details included about the event being discussed should build towards a closing that truly shows how you have grown from the experience described.  Most essays required in the college application process are personal essays.  We will read the passage on text pages 50 to 53 in order to see how a professional writer would approach this kind of writing.  We will take a look at a sample personal essay on text pages

Comparison/Contrast Essay  Follow along on text page 177.  An essay of comparison and contrast shows the similarities and differences between two or more subjects from the same category, including books, movies, people, and products.  You should make sure that you are making a point that will be somewhat surprising to the reader, not one that they will be able to foresee just by knowing what your subjects are.  We will read the passage on text pages 178 to 179 in order to see how a professional writer would approach this kind of writing.  We will take a look at a sample comparison/contrast essay on text pages

Persuasive Essay  Follow along on text page 129.  Every essay that you write should be a persuasive essay, as these make an argument that seeks to convince readers to share the writer’s point of view about a particular subject.  The structure of a persuasive essay is extremely important to the effectiveness of the argument. The information in the essay should flow pretty much from general information to more specific information.  We will read the passage on text pages in order to see how a professional writer would approach this kind of writing.  We will take a look at a sample persuasive essay on text pages

Literary Analysis  Follow along on text page 281.  A literary analysis can take many forms. The most common one for students is a thematic essay, which asks that students analyze a piece of literature in order to prove that the author has a message that is shown by the plot and the different literary elements used by the author. This message is typically some sort of theme, such as injustice, pride, or betrayal.  A good literary analysis is focused and does not waste valuable space on useless plot summary, except when it is absolutely central to the main argument of the essay.  We will read the passage on text pages 282 to 285 in order to see how a professional writer would approach this kind of writing.  We will take a look at a sample literary analysis on text pages  You should prepare for a quiz concerning the different kinds of essays that we have discussed.

Steps to Take  While every writer is different and thus prefers to go about his or her business in different ways, there are a few steps that are essential for every writer to at least know and understand. Once you develop your own writing voice, you may safely tweak these in whatever way you see fit.  For now, however, there are five major steps that you should be willing to work with in order to ensure that what you end up writing is good enough to submit for a grade.  Prewriting  Drafting  Revising  Editing  Publishing

Prewriting  The prewriting stage can be broken down into a few major steps.  First Ideas  Brainstorming  Initial Organization  Clustering  Further Research/Details  Devising a Thesis Statement  Structuring  Outlining

First Ideas  Brainstorming  Once you have an initial subject, take 10 to 15 minutes to simply jot down whatever ideas and thoughts come to you as you think about your topic. You might be surprised how much you have to say about a topic when you just give yourself some time to think about it.  This will be your initial guide in terms of what you wish to say in your essay.

Initial Organization  Clustering  Once you have your initial ideas on paper, take some time to begin thinking about how to organize those thoughts and perhaps some others into paragraphs.  This is a graphic organization step that will springboard you into outlining.  On page 15 of the textbook, you can see one example of clusters. You can also do clusters using a T-chart.  The idea is to group similar ideas together in “clusters,” thus giving you the beginning of a structure that you will carry through in your first draft.  Basically, the number of clusters should be the same as the number of body paragraphs that you will need. The name of the cluster will be the topic of the topic sentence for that body paragraph.  We will work together on a subject, brainstorm, and cluster exercise.

Further Research/Details  Follow along on text page 850 for some basic guidelines.  Your next step is crucial, and it is one in which you must be extremely careful not to fall into a number of traps that high school students tend to fall into.  Now that you have a general idea of your topic and a general structure for your basic ideas about it, you must do some extra research concerning this topic, taking notes on your research as you go along.  As you do this research, be very careful to note what you might decide to use as a direct quotation or a paraphrase, also writing down all of the publication information for that kind of information, as doing so now will help you avoid plagiarism later.  Remember that not all information is good information, as there are a lot of things on the internet that are simply not true. Be very careful in terms of where you seek information.  Also remember that outside information must be built into your essay as support for your general ideas, not the other way around. In other words, your paper should never be a collection of other people’s words and ideas. You must weave other people’s thoughts and ideas into the tapestry of your argument.  ANY TIME THAT YOU USE SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK, YOU MUST CITE THEM AS A SOURCE.  Text page 854 has some information on parenthetical format. Text page 851 has information on Bibliography format.  We will do some basic research on our chosen subject to show you what I mean.

Forming a Thesis  Your next step is perhaps the most important one. Your thesis statement is your statement of what you are going to attempt to prove or show to your reader(s) in the body of the essay; it must also tell how you plan to prove it.  Your thesis statement should conclude your introductory paragraph, which should build gradually toward your thesis statement. It should flow from general to specific.  A good thesis statement acts as a roadmap to the rest of the paper, and a bad thesis statement almost always means a bad paper.  A good thesis statement is complete; it tells what you will prove and how you will prove it.  A good thesis statement is concise; it should be as short as you can make it without cutting out necessary information.  A good thesis statement is clear; it leaves no confusion as to what you seek to do.  A good thesis statement is strong; it makes its claim in a manner which shows the conviction of its author.  A good thesis statement is segmented; it is broken down by the arguments which the rest of the essay will make. It should have as many segments as there are body paragraphs or major sections.  We will now devise a thesis statement for our sample subject.

Structuring/Outlining  There is a sample outline structure on text page 795.  Your final prewriting step involves organizing all of your thoughts, research, and ideas into one document which will act as a blueprint to your paper.  Like your paragraphs, your outline will break all of your information down into segments that will go from general to specific and back again, almost like a slinky.  A good and thorough outline will help you avoid many mistakes later on. It will also make the writing itself much easier, as this is the portion that will demand the most attention and require the most thought.  During the outline, you should write in full the most important sentences (thesis, topic sentences, transition sentences) and leave the rest as words that will remind you what you must write about when you do your draft.  We will compose an outline for our sample topic.  We will also take a look at the documents that you will be asked to prewrite about for your prewriting test.  You should prepare for a test concerning the prewriting process.

Drafting  Follow along on text page 18.  Once you have completed all of your prewriting steps, you are ready to write your first draft.  A draft should follow the template laid out by your outline. If the prewriting steps are done correctly, writing the draft should be pretty easy.  You should do your best to insert extra thoughts and ideas if they are useful, but be careful not to include too much “fluff.” Keep it simple.  Don’t worry too much about grammar on your first draft; you can take care of the polishing when you revise and edit before submitting your final paper.  For each of your body paragraphs, make sure that your supporting details help prove your topic sentences and that your evidence sentences help prove your supporting details.  You will take a test that will ask you to use your outline from the previous test in order to compose a first draft.

Revising for Structure, Grammar, Content, and Usage  Please look at each sentence of your first draft and do the following:  Check that your sentences are in the proper places for the flow of the essay that your outline should have laid out.  Please check that each sentence has a purpose.  Please check that if you are stating “facts,” they are true and you have supported them using the right methods.  Please check that your sentences are as short as they can be.  Please check that you have used the proper punctuation for your essay.  Please check that you have avoided using the first and second person.  Please check that you have not asked any questions.  Please check that your sentences are in the active voice.  Please check that you said what you wanted to say in each sentence in a grammatically correct way.  Please check that your pronouns are clear.  Please check that your subjects and verbs agree.

Editing and Proofreading  Your task will be to turn this essay into a typed essay in MLA Format that has no more than ten errors of any kind per page. If it has more than ten errors per page, it is an automatic failure.  Try printing it out and reading it over out loud. This can help you catch a lot of mistakes.  Try switching papers with other students and adults to find each other’s errors.  Take your time and be patient; if you wait until the last minute and don’t do this the right way, you will absolutely fail.

Publishing  Print the paper early and have it ready to hand in by the due date. No excuses.

Good times. The End (of this unit)