1. Warm-up: March 15
List the problems with this paragraph from the body of an essay:
Twain uses irony. It was dramatic irony. This dramatic irony uses emotionally charged wording. It describes the community’s view of war. “moving and beautiful”.

2. Basic Essay Body Paragraphs
ACE:
Assertion
Citation
Explanation

3. Thesis: Mark Twain uses dramatic irony to reveal the unintended consequences of war in “The War Prayer.”
Assertion
Unacceptable: Twain uses irony. It is dramatic irony. This dramatic irony uses emotionally charged wording. It describes the community’s view of war.
Better: Twain’s dramatic irony is revealed in his use of emotionally charged wording to describe the community’s view of war.
Best: The dramatic irony of Twain’s emotionally charged wording describes the community’s view of war.

4. Thesis: Mark Twain uses dramatic irony to reveal the unintended consequences of war in “The War Prayer.”
Citation
Unacceptable: None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father. (war)
Better: When Twain says that “[n]one could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language,” the irony is clear to the reader but not to the congregants.
Best: The minister’s prayers are uttered in “moving and beautiful language” (Twain) to “an ever-merciful and benignant” god (Twain).

5. Thesis: Mark Twain uses dramatic irony to reveal the unintended consequences of war in “The War Prayer.”
Explanation
Unacceptable:
Best: While the congregants perceive the language as beautiful, that fact that the desire is to “crush the foe” (Twain) suggests that their actual wish is not benign.

6. Thesis: Mark Twain uses dramatic irony to reveal the unintended consequences of war in “The War Prayer.”
Paragraph
The dramatic irony of Twain’s emotionally charged wording describes the community’s view of war. The minister’s prayers are uttered in “moving and beautiful language” (Twain) to “an ever-merciful and benignant” god (Twain). While the congregants perceive the language as beautiful, that fact that the desire is to “crush the foe” (Twain) suggests that their actual, unexplored wish is not benign.