1. Guided Editing: To Kill a Mockingbird Essay
How to make sure you get a fantastic grade!
The goal is not perfection,but excellence!

2. Guided Editing: Formatting
* take out your “personal snapshot” essay
* did you lose points on anything? (headings? margins? all pages numbered? spacing errors between paragraphs?)

3. Guided Editing: Title
* do you have a title? (is it centered? no extra spacing above or below)
* if you have a long title, it’s ok to break it up into two separate lines (so it doesn’t look like it’s part of the text)

4. Guided Editing: Formatting
* punctuate titles: To Kill a Mockingbird
* did you remember to italicize the title every time it appears in the essay?
* do not use the abbreviation TKAM in essay

5. Guided Editing: Essay structure
* this is a five paragraph essay
* do you have five paragraphs??? (count them)
* did you indent each paragraph? (use the “Tab”)

6. Guided Editing: Introduction
* 5 – 3 – 1 ??? (count…how close are you?)
* even if you have mentioned Harper Lee or the title in previous sentences, they both must appear again in the thesis

7. Guided Editing: Body Paragraphs
* does each topic sentence connect to thesis?
* did you add a concluding sentence at the end? never end a paragraph with a quotation

8. Guided Editing: Body Paragraphs
* do you have at least one quotation in each body paragraph?
* have you: introduced quotation? documented quotation? (page number) commented on it?

9. Guided Editing: concluding Paragraph
* do you restate thesis in first sentence?
* 1 – 3 – 5 ??? (do you have enough sentences?

10. Guided Editing: Common mistakes
* capitalize all names (some students forget to do this because they are so used to texting)
* Miss Maudie (not Miss.) Mr. / Mrs.

11. Guided Editing: Common mistakes
avoid “I” phrasing in writing -- never write:
I think…
I feel…
I believe…
in my opinion…

12. Guided Editing: Common mistakes
avoid references about writing an essay:
I hope you enjoyed reading my essay….
In my paper, I plan to discuss…
In this essay, I told you about…

13. Guided Editing: Common mistakes
avoid praising the book and/or author:
“This book is so great…”
“The world would be a better place if everyone read…

14. Guided Editing: Common mistakes
* no contractions in a formal essay
* mockingbird (not mocking bird)
* Tom Robinson’s trial (not trail)

15. Guided Editing: Common mistakes
* avoid references to movie (essay is about book)
* don’t cut off lines of text at bottom of page
* consider proportion/balance of body paragraphs