TRANSACTING "Crime and punishment" to discuss writing essays

About the story

"Crime and punishment" is a thought provoking short story which keeps its

suspense and twist from the beginning to the end. In this story, R K Narayan

describes humorously how the surroundings, the parent's mentality and

the teacher's attitude influence the personality of a child.

Concept/skills

• Expression of humour through the medium of short stories

.Role of corporal punishment in a learning atmosphere

Essay writing

Essays are generally scholarly pieces of writing giving the author's own

argument. However, this definition is vague, overlapping with those of an

article, a pamphlet and a short story.


There are four different types of essays:

 the expository essay, the persuasive essay, the analytical essay and the argumentative essay.

An expository essay is a specific kind of essay that involves investigating an

idea, evaluating the evidence, presenting the idea, and supporting the presentation with an argument.

Expository essays are usually written using comparison and contrast,

definition, example, and the analysis of cause and effect.

A persuasive essay is an essay used to convince a reader about a particular

idea or focus, usually one that you believe in. Your persuasive essay could

be based on anything about which you have an opinion.

An analytical essay seeks to explore a central idea or question based on a

text(s) and a learners engagement with that text.

The argumentative essay is a genre of writing that requires the learners to

investigate a topic; collect, generate, and evaluate evidence; and establish a

position on the topic in a concise manner.

 HOW TO WRITE AN ESSAY

The following is one of the ways of writing an essay.

• Collect maximum information on your topic. Go online, head to the

library, or search an academic database.

• Never ignore facts and claims that seem to disprove your original idea

or claim. A good essay writer either includes the contrary evidence and

shows why such evidence is not valid or alters his or her point of view in

the light of the evidence.

• Analyze well-written essays. In your research you'll probably come

across really well-written (and not so

well-written) arguments about your topic. Do some analysis to see what

makes them work. • Brainstorm your own ideas. You can use the arguments of others to back up what you want to say.

However, you need to come up with your original view or thoughts on the

topic to make it uniquely yours.

• Look at the ideas that you have generated. Choose one to three of

your strongest ideas that support your topic. You should be able to support

these ideas with evidence from your research.

• Plan your essay: Take the thoughts that you brainstormed and assemble

them into an outline. Write a topic sentence for your main ideas. Then,

underneath, make bullet points and list your supporting evidence.

Generally, you want three arguments or pieces of evidence to support

each main idea.

• Body of the essay. You have to think about length here; don't write

pages and pages if your teacher wants 5 paragraphs. However, you should

let your thoughts reveal themselves.

You can always make them more concise later.

• Avoid sweeping generalizations. Statements such as "______ is the

most important problem facing the world today," can cause your reader

dismiss your position out of hand if he/she disagrees with you. On

the other hand, "______ is a significant global problem" is more

accurate.

• Don't use "I" statements such as "I think." Likewise, avoid the

personal pronouns "you," "we," "my," "your" or "our". Simply stating

your argument with supporting facts makes you sound much more

authoritative. Instead of writing, "I found Frum to have a conservative

bias," tell the reader why your statement is true: "Frum displays

a conservative bias when he writes..."

• Title and introduction: Your title and introduction make people want

to read your essay. If your teacher is the audience, then of course your

teacher will read the whole piece.

However, if you're submitting to an essay contest or writing an essay for

college admissions, your title and introduction have to hook the reader

if you want to meet your objectives.

• Conclusion: Summarize your points and suggest ways in which your

conclusion can be thought of in a larger sense.

Process/Suggestion

• Teacher talks about the features of good essay. Give the learners

awareness about different types of essays and read a sample in the class.

• Allow the learners to dig into their own personal backgrounds to write

an expressive essay.

• Emphasize the importance of drafting and revising essays with this

lesson, and encourage students to use their imagination!

Assessment

Peer/Teacher assessment

Indicators:

• Comprehensiveness

• Topical sequencing of ideas

• Clarity

• Brevity

• Quality of language

 Portfolio:

• Appreciation

Indicators:

• Comprehensiveness

• Organization

• Appropriateness of language