- with the hook?
- with the introduction?
- with the thesis or essay topic sentence?
- with the supporting topic sentences?
- with the conclusion?
The answer is with the thesis / essay topic sentence.
But too many students don’t start there. They start with a topic—say Harry Potter books—and then focus on writing a hook to get someone to read their essay about Harry Potter books. When they are writing their hook they have no idea about the precise topic of their essay, just that it has something to do with Harry Potter books. Wrong approach!
To impress upon my students how primary the thesis is to an essay, I have them write it on their planner before they plan in detail. Then when they begin to write sentences, I have them skip five or six lines on notebook paper (or on a computer) and write their thesis there, partway down the paper, leaving room to add an introduction later.
The thesis is the anchor of the whole paper. I have students box that sentence in color for easy referral.
Next, I have the student write the body paragraph topic sentences. This time I ask students to skip ten or more spaces after each body paragraph. Later they can come back and fill in those spaces with details.
We read over those topic sentences and check out each one against the thesis. Does the topic sentence support the thesis? If yes, keep it. If no, toss it and write another topic sentence which does.
Next, students write the body paragraph sentences with all the details which back up the paragraph’s topic sentence and the thesis.
Now that they know what their essay is about they can go back and write the introduction and the conclusion.
Think of an essay as a wedding ceremony. What is most important in the ceremony? Is it the music as the bride walks down the aisle? Is it the flowers? Is it the witnesses? The kiss? Of course not. It’s the vows. The vows are just a few words. “I take you, Harry, to be my husband.” “I take you, Meghan, to be my wife.” Those vows are followed by supporting details like “for better or for worse,” and “in sickness and in health.”
The vows are like the thesis. “In good times and in bad” and the other details are like the body of the essay. The music is like the introduction and conclusion. And the bride’s beautiful dress is the hook. You can have a wedding without the dress and the music, but you cannot have one without the vows. The vows are where you begin, just as the thesis is where you begin an essay.
An essay is a planned, organized piece of writing with one overarching idea expressed in a topic sentence / thesis. Until you know what that thesis is, it makes no sense to write any other sentences because every other sentence must support the thesis.
English Writing Teacher 