Formal Essay

This task requires you to create a formal essay.  The purpose of this essay is to use the text you have studied to support your ideas regarding one of the guiding questions.

Objectives

You will be able to
- recognize writing as a process of constructing meaning for self and others
- use what is known as the writing process
- use appropriate pre-writing and planning strategies
- develop ideas previously explored into draft form
- revise and polish compositions
- share, present, or publish compositions
- develop compositions with explicit thesis statements
- write introductions that engage interest, focus the thoughts of the readers, and establish the mood and tone of compositions
- demonstrate the ability to trace a coherent thought pattern to a suitable conclusion
- use a variety of methods of development and, when appropriate, incorporate research material smoothly and effectively into compositions
- write conclusions appropriate to the overall intent
- analyze and evaluate their own and others' writing for ideas, organization, sentence clarity, word choice, and mechanics
- assess compositions for unity, coherence, and emphasis
- confer with peers and teachers
- prepare final copy using appropriate conventions of publication (e.g., title page, references, bibliography)
- write and document a convincing analysis of a literary work
- write and document a short formal research essay

Teaching-Learning Strategies

you begin drafting, you need to go through the stage of pre-writing and spend some time reviewing writing techniques.

An important aspect of writing is using the writing process. To begin your essay, you must first choose a topic and develop a thesis. In order to choose a topic follow these simple steps:

1. Choose the Social Experience subtheme that interested you the most, and select the guiding question you would like to answer from that subtheme. (For example, you might choose the subtheme Social Criticism and the question 'what is the purpose of social criticism?')

2. Write down ideas regarding the question you have chosen and texts that will support your answer. (For example, if your idea for your thesis is 'The purpose of social criticism is to keep society from repeating its mistakes' you would brainstorm ideas and literature that might help you to prove this).

3. Search through your selected texts to find quotes that will help you to prove your ideas.

Once you have an idea of what you might like to prove in your essay, you must review essay structure, including how to develop a proper thesis statement.

Formal essays are difficult to write because you must prove your thesis using only the literature rather than using your opinion. In order to ensure that you are using the literature to prove your ideas, focus on examples from the literature as you develop your thesis.

After you have chosen your thesis, it is time to organize your ideas. The simplest way to organize a formal essay is to begin with an outline(.doc) or (.rtf). Filling in this essay outline will ensure that you have adequate ideas and textual information to begin the drafting process.

the drafting process, it is important to simply put your ideas down on paper.  There will be an opportunity for revising and editing at a later time.

Once you have completed your outline, you will be given time to draft.

At this point, you will be working on your own, but you may need to consult your teacher, the essay information handout or an essay example in order to answer any questions you may have on format, introductory sentences, paragraph structure, concluding paragraphs, or any other common problems you may struggle with while writing a formal essay.

As you are writing, keep your purpose in mind. You must prove your thesis using the text you have listened to, read, or viewed. The more examples and analysis you provide regarding the text and the guiding questions, the stronger your essay will be.

You must include quotation within your essay in order to prove your thesis. As you are working to draft your essay, you may want to take some time to review the proper way to incorporate quotes into your essay.

drafting, you should complete the writing process and hand-in a good copy of your essay.

Be sure to complete the following steps:

1. Read your essay to yourself to make sure each of your ideas and body paragraphs relates to the thesis.
2. Peer-edit a classmates essay using the peer editing instructions(.doc) or (.rtf) and comment sheets (.doc) or (.rtf) provided
3. Make changes based on your own corrections and your peer-editor's ideas
4. Create a good copy of your essay and hand it in to the teacher

Remember that your job as a peer editor is to give your partner as much feedback as possible. Use the editing instructions and the comment sheet to help your partner revise his/her essay. Pay particular attention to whether or not your partner has a clear thesis and whether or not he/she has proven that thesis.

It is important that you follow all of the steps in the writing process. The more time that you spend planning your essay, drafting your essay, and revising and polishing your essay, the stronger your essay will be. For this reason, your evaluation(.doc) or (.rtf) will be based not only on your good copy but on your outline and your rough copy as well.