Prompt: For this week’s assignment, you are to write an essay in which you explain your stance/perspective on a topic such as education, parenting, adoption, same sex marriage, tuition, etc.You must choose the essay option I have provided for this assignment. If you submit an essay that does not respond to one of the prompts, your essay will not be accepted as an appropriate response to this writing assignment; instead, you will be asked to write another essay that does respond to the prompt you were assigned.

Note: An essay can be structured in many ways. The five paragraph essay is the most basic essay structure. Because the required length for your essays in this course is 500 words, the five paragraph model best suits your writing objectives. However, do not allow these guidelines to limit your writing; if you wish to write more than three body paragraphs to illustrate your paper’s thesis, then do so. The guidelines that follow can be applied to all the essays you write for this course. Your essays should vary in type (i.e. descriptive; comparison/contrast; argumentative), and not so much in structure.

THE FIVE PARAGRAPH (500 word) ESSAY OUTLINED

TITLE: The title should reflect the main idea of the essay. The title should be concise and interesting.

PARAGRAPH 1: Introduction

The essay’s introduction should consist of a minimum of five sentences. The introductory paragraph should begin with a general statement that reflects the essay’s topic. The paragraph will likely include transitional sentences or background information sentences that will then lead the reader into the writer’s purpose – the thesis statement. The thesis statement is what the writer will prove throughout his/her essay in the body paragraphs. The thesis should include a plan of development; it should consist of the writer’s position on the paper topic and the three points the writer will describe in the essay’s body to prove his/her position (Thesis example: The hiking trip was a disaster because (1) it rained the whole time, (2) we lost our camping equipment, (3) and our guide broke his leg.)

BODY PARAGRAPHS 2,3,& 4:

Each of the body paragraphs should begin with a topic sentence. If the writer has used the three point thesis model, writing each body paragraph’s topic sentence should be easy. The first body paragraph’s topic sentence, for example, should reflect the first point in the thesis statement (refer to the above thesis example – i.e. The torrential rains ruined the trip.). It then becomes the writer’s task to develop and support the point – these are your body paragraph’s supporting sentences. Once the writer effectively illustrates the first point, he/she will then proceed to the second point and follow the same guidelines for paragraph development (point two will introduce body paragraph two, and point three will introduce paragraph three).

PARAGRAPH 5: The Conclusion

In this paragraph, the writer’s task is to “complete” the essay. The function of the conclusion is to provide closure for the reader. The writer will remind the reader of his/her thesis by reviewing the points made in the essay’s body (Note: be careful not to restate the point’s exactly). To close the last paragraph, the writer may include his/her final perspective on the essay’s topic.