1. INTROS and CONCLUSIONS
Some pretty good examples

2. Introduce the story—author, title, background State thesis CONCLUSIONS
INTRODUCTIONS
(use good transition to connect all components)
Begin Broad
Introduce the story—author, title, background
State thesis
CONCLUSIONS
Restate thesis and summarize paper
Broaden out to another topic that relates to your essay

3. Introduction
Since the beginning of time, humans have been afraid of the unknown. From exploring new lands to dissecting the human body, people are always searching to discover the undiscovered so that they will not have to fear anything or anyone. One of the more unsettling concepts man has to face is how to confront his own mortality. In every way and shape, humans continually try to figure out what exactly death feels like or what happens after one dies; it scares people because they don’t know what to expect. Dino Buzzati’s short story, “Seven Floors,” does a wonderful job portraying a person genuinely afraid of dying, a man by the name of Giovanni Corte. Infected with an illness, Corte is sent to a nursing home in order to get better and becomes obsessed with the idea of staying among the well. Unfortunately, there is a conspiracy at hand. The doctors and nurses have embraced the inevitable fact that everyone is going to die, and to make the transition easier for the patients they proceed to successfully trick Corte into believing that he will not.

4. Conclusion-relates to real world
The doctors and nurses effectively delude Giovanni Corte into presuming that he isn’t going to die of the illness while they continue to lead him peacefully and unknowingly to death’s doorstep. All the while, Corte is frightened of the prospect of death, and even as he passes away he doesn’t seem to realize that he was fooled. Buzzati’s short story helps to explain this internal dilemma people have when facing the idea of dying, and it is only natural that one would cling onto a hope that they will live forever, for no one wants their life to come to an end. While some would rather come to terms with life’s finality as a last effort to examine their souls, others are content to deny that it will occur even as it is upon them.

5. Introduction
My favorite part of any airplane ride is the takeoff. Not only is the speed refreshing, but as the plane starts to be lifted up into the air, the view from the window shows the world from above. Cars become mere specks and people become almost invisible; skyscrapers become insignificantly short, and whole mountain ranges are visible from the window of an airplane. The feeling of being able to see everything from above can inspire confidence and optimism in oneself. However, the opposite movement of descent can also reverse this feeling, causing pessimism and negativity.
In Dino Buzzati’s “Seven Floors,” Giovanni Corte enters a sanatorium/hospital to cure his unnamed sickness. He is assigned to a room on the seventh floor, the floor for extremely mild cases of the disease; looking at the view over the town, he is confident that his sickness will get cured. But as his disease worsens and he is moved down from floor to floor, the view from the windows in his different rooms also starts to move closer and closer to the first floor, causing a decrease in his optimism. The view from the windows of his different rooms symbolizes dwindling optimism and hope shown as a theme throughout the short story.

6. Conclusion-takes a step further
As the view from his window, symbolic for the theme of hope and optimism, nears the first floor and is eventually cut off by surrounding trees, Giovanni Corte starts to fall into despair and pessimism. Ironically, the first floor of the hospital, where it is said that patients will die, is the only way for the patients to get out of the hospital. The patient is forced to enter and exit through the first floor, which implies that dying is the only way that one can be freed from the manipulation of the hospital. Buzzati’s message to his readers is that while the outside world can be a false hope to people, the only way to gain true, complete freedom is to die.

7. Introduction
From the very establishment of human society, death has been viewed as an unyielding phenomenon, encouraged by society to be both desired as well as feared. Some cultures view death in a positive light and believe that rather than being an ending, death is merely the start of a new life, be it in heaven or reincarnated here on earth. Other cultures, on the contrary, think of death and tremble with fear. However, no one culture truly understands this mysterious concept, for it is impossible to understand unless experienced firsthand.
Dino Buzzati’s “Seven Floors” tells the story of one man, Giovanni Corte, and his journey towards death, a passage that he finds both frightening and yet strangely relaxing. Throughout the story, Corte lives trapped in the walls of a sanatorium housing people with an untreatable illness that slowly drives the patients toward complete dementia. When Corte first arrives at the sanatorium, his view on death is that of fear and denial. However, when Corte finally passes on, he leaves the world with a silent acceptance of his conqueror, the inevitable death.

8. Conclusion-relates to reader
As the story develops, Corte’s perception of death transforms from fear to acceptance. Corte’s experience is not uncommon in that many people have an ever-changing view on death and what mysteries it holds. Buzzati takes what is otherwise a concept mostly left alone and makes it very intense and real. Readers walk away from “Seven Floors” with a new realization about death – some would say after reading the story that death is something to be greatly feared while others might actually anticipate death to be a very peaceful experience.

9. Introduction
Reality for a child is much different from the reality of an older, more mature adult. A child’s view is often is more innocent and a child often has a broader sense of the world around them. This could be because a child cannot comprehend or fully understand the magnitude of a situation, and therefore, cannot rationally deal with a situation the way an adult can. When a child becomes more mature, they are then able to make more rational and logical decisions. This situation of a child-like perspective and its movement into an adult perspective is evident in “The Conjurer Made Off with the Dish”, a short story written by Naguib Mahfouz. The story discusses a boy's perspective of the world around him. His perspective changes from boy-like fantasy to adult-like reality through the experiences he witnesses and the changes these experiences allow him to undergo.

10. Conclusion-makes a judgement
The boy’s childlike perspective becomes adult-like through his experiences the realization that he can no longer escape reality through dreaming. He now has to face the responsibility of his actions and understand their consequences in order to make his own way in the world. While the boy shows maturity in his decision to abandon the world of fantasy, he also shows the reader that he will become miserable in the world of adults. Left at the crossroads with “countless difficulties,” the boy makes the reader question whether the inevitable necessity of growing up is actually something to celebrate.

11. Introduction
Even surrounded by hundreds or thousands of people, a person can still feel completely isolated. The world we live in today provides most of the factors that contribute to this feeling. Among the most popular are pressures by other people and by humanity itself to have a flawless appearance, which leads to negative stereotypes of people who don’t fit that category. This particular insecurity devours people’s self confidence, and leads them to be severely critical of themselves. What these people don’t realize is that there are other people out there who feel the same way and can identify with them. “Fat” by Raymond Carver is no exception to this topic. A waitress and a very fat man both combat individual insecurity because of humanity, but also gain strength from their understanding of each other. Showing the popular theme of individual disconnection to the world because of a particular insecurity on these two character’s parts, “Fat” goes further to prove that even though humanity is the solution, it is also the cause.

12. Conclusion—another aspect of story
The connection between the characters shows that one individual can change a person’s life for the better in very simple ways. After the waitress’ experience meeting the fat man, she becomes frustrated with the people around her who can’t look past physical appearance, the way she did. He forces her to look at herself and she begins to understand her insecurities after observing his. Though she is still self conscious and alone, the possibility of hope is in the picture, now that she has met someone she can identify with. In this way, although humanity is the cause of the prejudice, human connection is also helping people feel less secure and less lonely. The vague setting and impersonal characters make it seem that this restaurant could be any place or any city; these characters could be anyone and everyone in the world. The author was unspecific for a reason: in order to point a finger at humanity itself instead of a certain person or type of person. Whether a waitress or a customer, whether fat or skinny, these insecurities and their stereotypes are things everyone can understand and learn to overcome, just like the waitress and the fat man.

13. Introduction
In adulthood, maturity often changes one’s review of their childhood actions and experiences. Even in teen years, some look back on their younger years of Middle or Lower School and cringe when thinking about that day they went to the school counselor to complain about their friend who stole their pencil case and wouldn’t give it back. Events in people’s childhood seem different, and somewhat immature, years later. In Raymond Carver’s “Fat,” the unnamed protagonist waitress shares a feeling of guilt and frustration for the childish lack of understanding and respect for the feelings and appearances of others that children and many adults have. This guilt was spurred by the visitation of a rather obese customer in the restaurant in which the protagonist works. After undergoing a feeling of change and revelation, the waitress listened to her boyfriend reminisce of two fat kids he grew up with and how they were teased about their weight. The waitress is characteristically changed in the way she views and analyzes the appearances of others, now sensitive to how their past may have influenced and created present insecurities and affected their self-confidence and aware that similar treatment now could influence those insecurities and even lower their self-confidence

14. Conclusion-answers why
Raymond Carver’s “Fat” enlightens readers of the long-lasting effects of teasing and criticizing of children for looks and appearances. Carver’s protagonist underwent a symbolic change, acquired a new understanding for those who are overweight, and began to relate herself to the fat customer she served that night, feeling guilty, wondering how her actions might have impacted the adulthood of fat children she knew when she was younger. The waitress began to feel guilty for things either from her childhood or from that night at the restaurant when she and her co-workers were making fun of the fat man behind his back. The theme of guilt is tied directly to her sudden empathy for the fat man, imagining herself fat, causing her to become conscious of her own appearance. Because the waitress put herself in the shoes of the fat man, she then was able to imagine how he felt, and the waitress herself underwent a change in the way she thinks of others and their appearances. She began to see herself as the one that was teased and made fun of, and began to feel the effects of that. She understood why people like the fat man are insecure and have a low self-esteem and self-confidence. Through this, she gained a new respect for those whom she formerly looked down upon and criticized.