The proverbial dust has finally settled now that all the essays have been given back for now. The student traffic in and out of my office lately has been dizzying, and the next few days look to be just as busy.
Most students want to know how to write better essays. Out of the nearly 100 essays I graded last week, there was only one "A" paper and even that one could have been better. There were a few high B's, essays that were right on the cusp of greatness but were missing a certain something. Even the ones that were well below that were missing pretty much the same things, just on different scales. The infamous "NG" grades (which aren't nearly as bad as they sound. It only means "no grade" given yet; it's better than a really bad grade, isn't it?) had the same problems as the B papers, except there was less substance, not enough for me to grade.
So how do you get this substance into your papers?
A quality essay has to not only be pretty squeaky clean grammatically, but also has to express an original, engaging, thought on the subject. There are various ways of doing this, and I would never suggest that my way is the only way. But in the past couple of years, I've developed a way of showing students how to format such a paper. It's the same one I wrote on the board a few days ago, which I just call the 1-2-3 method of analysis:
Each paragraph of your essay ought to look something like this.
1. Make a statement.
2. Give evidence.
3. Discuss evidence.
1. Make a statement. This is your topic sentence or what I call "the label on the box." Think of the paragraph as a box in which you are going to pack certain things in order to organize. Organization, after all, is the key to clear expression. So if you clearly mark the box/paragraph, then there should be no doubt as to what it contains. I should be able to read your "label" (topic sentence) and know exactly what that box contains. When you look back over your essay, if you see a subject being discussed that does not belong with that label, then you need to put that statement or phrase in another box, or paragraph. If your paragraph turns out to be about something other than what you planned, you could even consider changing your topic sentence. The other alternative could be to re-write your entire paragraph. Either way, the label has to match the contents of the box, and vice-versa.
2. Give evidence. The evidence you use is simply the short quotes, details, choice words, SPECIFIC references to scenes and characters that you use to support your topic sentence. These will show your reader (me) that you are not just making broad or abstract claims; you actually have reasons for making the assertions you make, and here is the proof.
3. Discuss evidence. It's never enough just to show evidence and assume that I know why it's there. If I want to make my own connections, I will write my own paper. Your job is to show me why you think what you think about the book, story, poem (or whatever) you've read. So go back to your list of details or your quotes, look at the word choice used by the author and tell me why you think these words that you've chosen are appropriate evidence for what you're trying to prove or illustrate. If you've used a quote with at least several words in it, go back through the quote, pick out a few (or at least a couple) of key words and tell me why they help prove your point.
I'm not telling you this simply because it's right and other methods are wrong. I'm telling you this because, for most of you, it will give you a method for working. There is confidence in having a formula that workd and if you get used to doing it this way, you will always have full, meaningful paragraphs that are full of analysis and substance.
I'll be trying to blog about more of this kind of thing over the next few days and coming weeks. This is only a beginning (also see my earlier blog about sentence structure fixes). I've been paying attention to the voting (see top right of page) and this is the kind of thing that some of you want to see more of. Also, if you have a more specific question, PLEASE leave a comment or see me in person and ask me to blog about a certain idea. That way, I can address your particular needs.
GC
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