English 4UI Orwell Essay Assignment Tips

The Task Illustrate the principles of graceful writing Find a sample of bad writing, tell what is bad about it and tell what effect it has on the reader Find a sample of good writing, tell what is good about it and tell what effect it has on the reader

Bad Writing: where can you look?! Politicians (eg. George Bush, Sarah Palin) The media (eg. newspapers, letters to the editor, articles, etc.)

Good writing: Where can you look? Consider the models from class (eg. Churchill, Kennedy); find a fresh example Novels (eg. one of your Independent Study novels) The Bible, Milton, classics, etc. Other great political orators (eg. Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama, etc.)

Structure 4 paragraph essay Introduction (introduce the pieces of writing— authors, sources) 1 st body paragraph: sample of bad writing, what is bad about it, what effect does it have? 2 nd body paragraph: sample of good writing, what is good about it, what effect does it have? (save best argument for last) conclusion

Thesis Create 2 principle clauses; use a semi- colon! First clause: tell what makes the first writing sample bad and what effect it has Second clause: tell what makes the second writing sample good and what effect it has Be sure to identify the kind of good/bad writing and its effect

Model thesis: Bad political writing confuses and bores the reader with jargon and redundancies; good political writing, on the other hand, with vivid adjectives, forceful verbs and effective sound devices like assonance, alliteration, and onomatopoeia, drives the reader to emotion through the mental images it creates.

Topic Sentences 1 st body paragraph: topic sentence should come from first half of thesis 2 nd body paragraph: topic sentence should come from 2 nd half of thesis

Body Paragraphs for body paragraphs, explain what kind of good/bad writing it is eg. if writing is bad because it lacks parallelism, illustrate the lack of parallelism in the example; be specific (specify) then explain what is the effect (eg. good imagery creates a visual picture in the reader's mind; pretentious diction loses the reader because the meaning is not clear) make your argument about bad writing stronger by rewriting it in better English

Not about citation This essay is not about citation; no works cited list needed Rather, include the author, source (eg. title of article and newspaper, or title of novel) right in your paragraph You can cite the page number of a novel Eg. “Sunrise, tantalize” (45).