Knowing essay format is simpler than writing essays. You can
introduce essay writing even if you know no more than is on this
page.
Of course, you'll have to learn how to use the essay format right
along with your students, but you would have to do that no matter
how much you knew starting out.
The essay doesn't get much respect, but it is a powerful and
pervasive communications tool. It's also a tool that lends itself
to both teaching and learning.
The definition of essay
An essay is a type of short (less than book-length) expository
nonfiction built around a thesis
statement, which is simply an assertion or opinion about a topic.
The topic could be anything at all.
Classifications of essays
Essays can be classified two ways:
Essay format isn't used in all essays
What English teachers refer to as essay
format or essay structure is actually the organizational pattern
of the persuasive essay
with its clearly defined thesis and supporting evidence for the
thesis.
The organizational opposite of the persuasive essay is the narrative
essay. Between the two organziational patterns on the essay
continuum are other types of essays that contain varying amounts
of the two basic patterns.
The persuasive-pattern essay
In its purest form, the persuasive-pattern essay is developed
in units of three:
-
Three sections (beginning, middle, and ending or introduction,
body, and conclusion).
-
Three points supporting the thesis statement.
-
Three pieces of evidence supporting each point.
The shortest piece of writing that can display all the classical
components of that pattern is five paragraphs long. That's where
the term "five paragraph
essay" comes from.
The narrative essay
Instead of nine supporting pieces of evidence, the narrative
essay uses just a single, true story, told either in
first-person or third person, to persuade readers to accept the
thesis.
The writing process for essays
What is called the writing process is really
a hodgepodge of processes for a variety of genres of writing.
You will find teaching essay writing easier if you teach a writing
process for producing the the persuasive-pattern (thesis
+ support) essays.
Skilled writers can use the same pattern in preparing to write, flexing the basic structure in various ways so that their essays don't look at all like the much maligned five-paragraph essay pattern.
You can teach students about how essays are put together in a
single period, but teaching
them to apply essay format in their work will take months.
