In addition to going “full circle,” another good kind of conclusion is one which focuses on the future of the topic.
Suppose the student is writing about what he wants to be when he grows up, and he writes about three or four different careers (an engineer, a computer programmer, a math teacher and an accountant). In his conclusion he could say that he doesn’t know what his future holds, but he believes it will have something to do with math since all his career choices need a strong background in math.
Or suppose the student is writing about different kinds of stars. She could end by mentioning future research or discoveries to be made in the field of astronomy, or a recent discovery and how exciting that is for her.
If a student is reviewing changes being introduced for the SAT tests, she could conclude that current changes will not be the end of the changes, that as the skills students need change, so will the skills tested by the SAT. She might predict what other kinds of skills might be evaluated by the test, such as computing skills. She could suggest that future tests might be taken on smart phones or tablets since fluency in those technologies is becoming so important.
Next we will look at revising. It’s a big topic, so it will take many blogs to explain.
English Writing Teacher 