Home : Essay types : Essay continuum

Many types of essays become 2
Essay continuum shows how

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Pick up any English text book and you will find a long list of types of essays that looks something like this:

Argument essay
Persuasive essay
Cause-and-effect essay Classification essay
Compare and contrast essay
Comparison or contrast essay
Critical essay
Definition essay
Descriptive essay
How-to-essay
Illustration essay
Informative essay
Literary analysis
Narrative essay
Process essay

If you are just starting out teaching writing to middle school and high school students, you might find the list daunting. How could you possibly ever teach all those different literary genres?

Think how your students will feel if they see that list! Yikes! I had to take the extra line spacing out of the list to keep from scaring myself so badly I'd never be able to write again.

That's the reason I skip the list. Instead, I tell my students there are two basic essay patterns: persuasive pattern and narrative pattern. All the essays in that long list can be developed by adapting one or both of those patterns. Whew. I feel better already.

The essay continuum

All those different labels can be placed along a continuum with the persuasive essay at one end and the narrative essay at the other. Persuasion and narrative represent totally different ways of organizing material around a thesis statement.

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by Ijsendoorn

Argument is the persuasive essay on steriods, so it sits to the left of the left side anchor of the continuum. Its organization adds some "must have" structures to the persuasive essay pattern.

Structurally, the narrative essay is totally different. It scarcely appears structured at all. (Appearances are deceptive!) It is the anchor at the far right of the continuum.

Students don't need to know all this stuff about essay types. All they need to know is that you are going to teach them one type (the persuasive essay) until they master it. After they are fluent in persuasive essay style, you can show them how to adapt it to other applications.

I rarely have to teach students how to write any other types of essays if I teach throughly how to write persuasive essays. Most students figure out how to adapt the pattern to new situations all by themselves.

Created 15-Aug-2008; updated 18-Sep-2008