Persuasive Process Essay Continued

Today we examined a model persuasive essay as an example for how to structure our own persuasive process essay. Here is what we observed.

Putting on our annotation "specs"

This is the essay we analyzed. We identified the thesis, the restated thesis, the transitions and proper nouns, and also the overarching ideas ("buzzwords").

Here is the thesis.

Notice that the thesis clearly states the topic and position ("It is better to live in a big city...") and the reasons why ("because opportunities are endless in the career you want to pursue.") Based on this thesis, we know that the writer will defend big city livin' because of the awesome jobs one can acquire while there.

Then, we noticed that the author sort of repeated this thesis in the conclusion.

The restated thesis is underlined in green above. The thesis in your conclusion should be RESTATED, not repeated. In other words, you may use many of the same  "buzzwords" (circled in green) as your original thesis, but you might also change them up and change your sentence order. Another good way to restate your thesis without repeating it is to simply reverse the emphasis of the sentence. For example:

"Living in a small town is better because it promotes concentration and compassion"
becomes
"Concentration and compassion are both key features of small town life."

Living in a small town is the emphasis in the original thesis. The components of compassion and concentration become the focus in the restated thesis.

After we located the thesis and the restated thesis, we went about identifying the specific and detailed examples in the essay. This was relatively easy because the author used proper nouns to elaborate and give details.

The proper nouns are circled. You can see them labeled off to the right side. The author is detailed by stating the title of the movie or show, the name of the main character, and even the names of the settings. Moreover, they use chronological order to explain their examples!

You might also notice that the author uses transitions at the beginning of each paragraph after their introduction (which contained only their thesis). Using transitions and transitional phrases at the beginning of and within paragraphs help move the reader along and gives them as sense of how all of your ideas fit together.

Finally, we circled the "buzzwords" in green. These are words that were present in the original and restated thesis statements. They represent key ideas in the essay. Words like "career" and "opportunities" and "pursue" and "endless" all refer to the point the writer wanted to make in their essay.

Your body paragraphs should contain "buzzwords" from your thesis! If you are worried about repeating yourself too much, write your rough draft first with as much repetition as you want, then go back and circle each use of the word and upgrade a few using the thesaurus. For example,

big city --> metropolitan areas
Living in --> residing in
more people --> highly populated
less crime --> safer communities
job --> career/occupation/employment

And remember, WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW! I know sometimes it's tough to think up examples, but with practice, it WILL get easier.

Your examples should be things you DON'T have to look up last minute on Google. They should be the things you can recite from memory. It's okay if you have to do some minor fact-checking now, but remember that you won't be able to on the day of the STAAR!

Now, make sure you have your green outline packet done when you come to class on Tuesday! You must turn it in by Tuesday in order to be allowed to use it during our summative cold write on block day!