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Octaviano Collars
Student essays are responses to specific questions. As an essay must address the question directly, your first step should be to analyse the question. Make sure you know exactly what is being asked of you.
For a more complex question, you can highlight the key words and break it down into a series of sub-questions to make sure you answer all parts of the task. Consider the following question (from Arts):
As you plan and prepare to write the essay, you must consider what your argument is going to be. This means taking an informed position or point of view on the topic presented in the question, then defining and presenting a specific argument.
The body of the essay develops and elaborates your argument. It does this by presenting a reasoned case supported by evidence from relevant scholarship. Its shape corresponds to the overview that you provided in your introduction.
The body of your essay should be written in paragraphs. Each body paragraph should develop one main idea that supports your argument. To learn how to structure a paragraph, look at the page developing clarity and focus in academic writing.
An essay that makes good, evidence-supported points will only receive a high grade if it is written clearly. Clarity is produced through careful revision and editing, which can turn a good essay into an excellent one.
Finally, check your citations to make sure that they are accurate and complete. Some faculties require you to use a specific citation style (e.g. APA) while others may allow you to choose a preferred one. Whatever style you use, you must follow its guidelines correctly and consistently. You can use Recite, the University of Melbourne style guide, to check your citations.
From Great Paragraphs to Great Essays is designed to guide intermediate students through the process of writing paragraphs and developing essays. It equips students with the necessary training to ultimately produce a well-structured 700-word essay. The book is supplemented by a website with additional quizzes that complement the topics studied in every unit.
This textbook provides an extensive and clear Table of Contents. It lists every topic heading within every unit. Similarly, the index at the end of the book offers easy and direct access to specific information.
Though the two parts complement each other, instructors need not follow the unit ordering in the second part of the volume. This gives teachers following different curricula flexibility. While I believe the three units in Part 1 constitute a whole, they could serve separately for review, as needed, before tackling the essay. Moreover, though the main purpose of the book is essay development, the authors have chosen to include crucial, often challenging, grammar and language sections in each unit. These Language Focus activities serve to complement the aim of every chapter. For instance, Language Focus 9 and 10 of Unit 5, Compare and Contrast Essays," respectively deal with Forming the Comparative and Superlative, and Parallel Structure. These are essential for any student required to write this type of essay. Other topics include, but are not limited to, sentence fragments, noun forms, descriptive language, pronoun references, subject-verb agreement, and word forms.
Every lesson helps explain the focus points listed in the box and is followed by a variety of activities that reinforce the learning process. The activities are pertinent to the lessons and are diverse. They require students to be attentive and active, but the exercises are also systematic. For instance, Units 1 to 3 provide students with the right steps to build a paragraph. Students must follow the guidelines learned in these chapters, from brainstorming to proofreading, and apply them to every paragraph they will write. Such structure trains students to be methodical and efficient.
Some exercises require individual work, while others direct students towards group work. Clearly, the authors endorse such activities, since every unit has at least one peer editing exercise. An appendix at the end of the book provides students with detachable peer-editing sheets where partners must answer specific questions. This collaborative feedback allows the student writer to reconsider some of the choices they have made. The quality of advice given allows teachers to gauge to what extent students understand a specific paragraph or essay building component: whether, in fact, they are capable of rephrasing, explaining, and answering. Such peer feedback also offers students guidance from someone other than the teacher. Group exercises change the momentum of the classroom, and often prove to be quite fun.
Under General Resources students can find ACE Quizzes, no login code required. These are interactive quizzes, divided by unit, that nicely complement each chapter from the book. The exercises vary in type. While they are predominantly multiple choice items that vary in number, there are some that require students to write in their own answers. Below you will find an example for each.
Students must type in their lower case a or b answer (case sensitive) in the box provided. Once done answering all the questions, students click on the Submit Quiz button and get a percentage mark and the answers immediately:
The publisher provides further assistance with their Smarthinking Tutoring Center. This is a time controlled live tutoring center that requires a student account. Teachers also need to open one. Additionally teachers are offered access to ESL instructor sites when they call the phone number listed.
Student writers are well looked after in this book through the ample guidance and effective practice the authors provide. They use simple language in presenting the means to write an essay, from brainstorming to proofreading.
I spent four years during my Doctor of Creative Arts degree learning how to write well. The result was my book Saving Sun Bears which was published in 2020.
It tells the amazing story of a Malaysian ecologist as he struggles to save a species. I am proud of this book.
Not only because of the subject matter but also because I learned many different writing techniques along the way. Techniques which I incorporated... Like how to write great paragraphs!
Paragraphs are the building blocks of good writing and today, I want to help you teach kids how to write killer paragraphs. Feel free to use these examples in the classroom or with your children and let me know how you go!
The next section is a sentence (or a couple of sentences) which gives more information about the topic.
They should think of this section as answering questions like Where, What, Why, How or When. For example:
Although there are eight bear species, very few people have heard about the Malayan sun bear. This bear has black fur with a gold chest patch. It lives in the Bornean rainforest and spends most of the day high in the trees.
The last part of the TEEL paragraph is really important. It acts as the conclusion of the paragraph.
This is a sentence that either links back to the topic of the paragraph, OR links to the next paragraph. Sometimes it can do both like this one:
Can you see how this section talks about how Dr Wong is making a difference (linking back to the topic sentence) AND it introduces a NEW idea that can start the next paragraph by focusing on orangutans?
I'd love to hear your thoughts about this method.
Let me know in the comments below and also, search my website to find more free classroom resources. Check out the Wildlife Wong series while you're there!
Writing good paragraphs is inevitably an essential element of all good essays, and one that you will spend a good deal of time developing throughout the course. But what does it take to write them consistently and effectively? The answer to that question is not straightforward, and of course there are many different kinds of paragraphs, and many different ways of writing them successfully. Having said that, it probably is true to say that good paragraphs - however varied, and whatever their subject, often have similar technical characteristics. Let's try to identify some of them...
7. Develop: a paragraph will make progression and overall present a development in the argument. In this sense a paragraph can be like a mini essay, with an introductory statement, a main body of exploratory points and then a kind of conclusion which assesses how far the paragraph has developed the argument.
8. Will be neither too long nor too short. If your paragraph is only a coupe of sentences long then the chances are there is not enough material for a paragraph topic to be clearly identified or explored. Equally, if the paragraph goes on for more than, say, half a side, it may well be a sign that it should be split into two (or more) topics instead. Typically, an 'average' A4 page will consist of 2-3 paragraphs.
Read through the following model paragraph (taken from an essay on Master Harold and the Boys, by Athol Fugard), with teacher notes alongside, to see how these characteristics can be realised. (Teachers - you could project this table in full screen for students to read).
The ballroom scene is important because it reinforces the idea of Sam in his role as mentor to Hally.1 At the start of the scene, Hally is reluctant to see the dance as anything more than 'simple' and declares that it has no more significance than "American sodas with ice cream".2 Through Sam's excited anticipation of the dance competition, however,3 he manages to convince Hally that it is more: "There's only standing room left. We've got competitors coming from Kingwilliamstown, East London, Port Alfred", he remarks - portraying the extent of its importance throughout the whole of the region, as well as its significance as a voice for the black community.4 Furthermore, as the scene gains momentum, the dance begins to move towards something of more figurative importance.5 For Sam, it carries meaning in terms of the relationship between the three men. He states, "Look at the three of us this afternoon: I've bumped into Willy, the two of us have bumped into you..." and then he goes even further to announce its status as a metaphor for the conflict between people and nations. "America", he says, "has bumped into Russia, England is bumping into India, rich man bumps into poor man".6 Sam is therefore presented as a wise and mature man who possesses considerable insight, and Hal cannot help but be swayed by his persuasive rhetoric. He comments, "You're right. We mustn't despair". However, it is ironic, or perhaps a fitting reminder of the futility of this idea, that the phone rings at precisely at this point. This provides one further example of the play's modulation between hope and despondency.7
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