If you are teaching children essay writing, at which point do you tell students to begin their writing? With the hook? With the introduction? With the thesis? Somewhere else?
Lately when my students start to write essays, I tell them to skip over the introduction completely for now except for its last sentence, the thesis. That is where I tell them to begin.
Then I tell them to write the topic sentences of the body paragraphs. After that, I tell them to fill in the body paragraphs with detailed sentences. Then, after the student knows the contents of the body, I tell students to write their introductions at the top of one page and their conclusions at the bottom of that page, so the students can see them both together.
The first draft of an essay is put together something like this (after the student writes an organizer):
- The thesis is written at the top of the notebook paper or computer document.
- Under it is written the first body paragraph topic sentence. About 2/3 of the way down the notebook paper is written the second body paragraph topic sentence. On the back top is written the third body paragraph topic sentence. Half way down is written the fourth, if there is a fourth. If the student is using a computer, these sentences can be written one beneath the other since inserting more material is easy.
- At this point, I ask the students to check to see if each topic sentence supports the thesis. If not, this is the time to make it work.
- Next, the students fill in the body paragraphs with details from their prewriting organizer, making sure that each detail supports the paragraph topic sentence.
- Finally, on a separate notebook paper (or at the top of the essay), students compose the introduction with or without a hook. Below it, the student composes the conclusion, trying as much as possible, to pick up some thread mentioned in the introduction. If the student is using a computer, the student can move the conclusion to the end once he or she has compared it to the introduction.
At this point students can type a rough draft if they have worked on notebook paper, assembling the paragraphs in the correct order. Once the essay is on computer, they can revise.
Students tell me that at school they are told to start writing essays with the hook. I tell my students to skip right over that. Why? What I am looking for is not creativity but logic, the logic of topic sentences which support a thesis and paragraph details which support the topic sentences. That is the meat of an essay, and that is what I see missing in students’ essays these days. When that logic is established, the student can work on a creative (or not) introduction and a conclusion which dovetails with that introduction.
English Writing Teacher 