1. Year 9 Extended Text Essay
Introducing Essays
Year 9 Extended Text Essay

2. Overview The purpose of this lesson is to:
Understand why we write literary essays
Understand what information we need to convey through a literary essay
Understand how a literary essay is structured

3. Notes
As we go through the following points, use the note page you’ve been given to answer the questions related to this presentation.

4. Essay Purpose
Essays are used throughout College and into University, in a range of subject areas.
The purpose of an essay is to:
Show you understand the main ideas in a text
Show that you know what techniques have been used by the person who created the text
Show that you are able to analyse texts thoughtfully
Texts can be written, visual or oral.

5. Essay Content
All essays contain information about the text. They are directed at answering an essay question.
Examples of essay questions could be:
Describe how a main character changed during the novel you studied. Explain how the writer showed that this change was important.
Describe an interesting lesson you learned from the text. Explain how the writer helped you understand this lesson.

6. Essay Content
Essays answer both parts of the question. The introduction sets up the essay by telling the reader what the essay is about, and how it will answer the question.
The body paragraphs generally answer the question point by point, and the conclusion sums up what has been written in each body paragraph.
Specific evidence from the text is used to support the essay-writers ideas. Evidence is the use of details and quotations from the text, which the essay writer explains.

7. Essay Structure
Essays follow a clear structure so that the marker understands what they are about:
Introduction – About 3 sentences.
Body Paragraph – Usually there are four body paragraphs.
Conclusion – About 3 sentences.

8. Paragraph Structure Point
What is the main idea of your paragraph? Check that is relates to the question.
Example
Give a specific example of a technique you found in the text that gives you information about the point you made.
Decipher
Explain how the example works to help you understand the point you have made.
Analyse
Explain what the creator of this text wants you to feel, think or know. What is the overall idea that is being communicated?
Link
Link this paragraph back to the question, and link to the next paragraph

9. Exemplar Read the exemplar essay. Choose ONE body paragraph.
Highlight P.E.D.A.L