Books and baked ziti literary essay grades 3-5 presented by jessica griffith

What is the writing process? 1.) Gather ideas 2.) Plan writing 3.) Draft writing piece 4.) Revise writing 5.) Edit writing 6.) Publish and celebrate This is the process that it used regardless of genre. Today we will be applying it to literary essay.

Gathering Essayists gather ideas for essays by thinking about complexities in characters. They know that characters are seldom just “good” or “bad”, but are complicated. One way that we can gather ideas about our characters is by thinking about words that we can use to praise them, and words that we can use to condemn them. Cinderella Words to Praise Cinderella Words to Condemn Cinderella Helpful Helpless

Gathering Writers use thought prompts to help them develop their ideas about their characters. They write long about what they are thinking. Could it be… On one hand…On the other hand… At first I thought…but now I think…. It seems to me… One one hand Cinderella is a helpful character because she does so much for her stepsisters. She is constantly assuming their responsibilities by doing things like mopping the floor, cooking dinner and helping to make their dresses. On the other hand though, Cinderella is also pretty helpless. She can’t really seem to improve her life. It’s only when the Fairy Godmother comes that she is able to gain the ability to attend the ball and meet her prince. It seems to me that she is heavily relying on others.

Planning Writers plan their essays by looking across their ideas and developing 3 strong reasons to support their idea or claim. ______________is ______________ because _________________________ and _______________________ ______________________ Remember, reasons are BIG categories that hold our smaller examples. Cinderella is both helpful and helpless because: 1.) She does everything for her stepsisters (helpful) 2.) She can’t improve her life on her own (helpless) 3.) She struggles to stand up for herself (helpless)

Planning Writers plan their essays by going back over their post-its, free writes and into the text to find specific examples to support their reasons. They ask themselves: What specific action piece of dialogue or interaction inner thinking description proves that this reason is true? Cinderella is both helpful and helpless because she does everything for her stepsisters. In the text it says that “Cinderella knelt down beside her evil stepsister and started to tie her shoes. The mean woman couldn’t so much as tie her own shoes without Cinderella’s help.” This shows that Cinderella is helpful because she is doing so much for her stepsisters. They can’t possibly survive without her.

Drafting Writers draft essays by carefully adhering to essay structure. They know that essays start with an introduction, followed by 3 body paragraphs and a conclusion. Writers draft introductions by thinking about how they can set their readers up to follow their thinking and understand the structure of their essay. In the fairy tale Cinderella, Cinderella is both a helpful and helpless character. She is helpful because she helps her stepsisters with everything they need to do. She is helpless because she struggles to stand up for herself and she can’t improve her life on her own.

Drafting Writers draft conclusions by reminding their readers of their claims and the reasons that they have to support them. They can also make a connection to themselves or the world or talk about what they can learn from the character. As you can see, Cinderella is both helpful and helpless. She is helpful because she helps her stepsisters with everything they need to do. She is helpless because she struggles to stand up for herself and she can’t improve her life on her own. I think that in creating a character like Cinderella, the author is teaching us that it is good to help others, but that we also have to stand up for ourselves, and help ourselves to improve our futures.

Revise Writers revise their essays by zooming in on their examples and making sure that they are as strong as they can possibly be. They ask themselves: Do all of my examples fit with my reasons? Do all of my reasons support my claim? Is there another example that I can add? Is there a stronger example that I can use instead?

Edit Writers edit their writing by whisper reading it to a partner and asking themselves and their partner: Does this sound right? Is my punctuation and capitalization correct? Am I trying all of the strategies that I know to spell words correctly?