Essay Writing

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 1

Literary Essay - Face

1. On the 17th of April, you have to hand in your literary essay about Face. 
2. This essay should be between 200 and 250 words.
3. You have to hand in this essay on ELO in Magister. 
4. The essay is a 2-test and is of course for a mark then.

What is a literary essay?

Literary essay

A short text (200-250 words) in which you discuss your main argument, also called the thesis statement, about a book. You support this main argument with evidence from the book. 

You are basically trying make the reader believe your thesis statement about the book by giving them smaller arguments for why the TS is true and how the book supports that.

Thesis Statement (argument)

You won't have to come up with your own TS for Face. Here's the one that you will be writing your essay about.

Thesis Statement:

The prejudice that Martin faced after his accident made him a stronger person.

What does a literary essay look like?

There are 3 paragraphs in total:

1. introduction
2. body 
3. conclusion

1. Introduction (± 80 words)

What to write about in the introduction:

1. A catchy sentence with the title of the book to catch the reader's attention.
2. A sentence about the author of the book - Zephaniah.
3. One or two sentences that summarise (samenvatten) the book.
4. The thesis statement (can be copied from the assignment)

2. Body (± 100 words)

What to write about in the body:

1. Start with an argument that supports your thesis statement
   Example (not the actual TS for the essay):
   TS: Martin overcame his prejudice during Dancemania.
   Argument: Martin came to enjoy hip-hop more than he thought and made friends in the club.

2. Body (± 100 words)

What to write about in the body:

1. Start with an argument that supports your TS.
2. Give evidence from the book. You can talk about things that happen in the book here.
3. Explain why this proves your argument.
4. Link this to the Thesis Statement

3. Conclusion (± 40 words)

What to write about in the conclusion:

1. Rephrase your Thesis Statement.
2. Link it to your argument in the body paragraph.
3. Add a concluding sentence to round off the essay (don't add something like 'I hope you enjoyed it').

Important! 
Never add NEW information in the conclusion.

Tips:

• Make a writing plan beforehand - What are you going to write about?
• Keep on re-reading your work while you are writing and ask yourself if it makes sense.
• Be mindful of silly mistakes! Use capitals at the start of sentences, capital 'I' and full-stops at the end of a sentence.

If you have any questions right now, write them here so we can discuss them together (your names won't show up, so nobody will know it's you :) )