Teaching students to write essays that explain is a breeze once students learn about the different expository genres. Before assigning that first essay, make sure that your students have a good understanding of how to define a topic in general and specific terms
General to Specific Class Activity:
In order to teach students how to organize writing around a thesis or main idea, first show students how to draw specific ideas from general topics. Begin by writing the word "movies" on the board. Ask students to name types of movies (examples: action, romance, horror, suspense, comedy). Write down all of the genres that students name them without editing.
Next, ask students to provide examples of each genres. List these examples under the name of each genre.
Example:
Comedy
- Ferris Buehler's Day Off
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Little Miss Sunshine
- The Devil Wears Prada
- Borat
- Napoleon Dynamite
Now list and briefly describe various types of expository writing.
- Cause and Effect: shows the relationship between one and another.
- Compare and Contrast: compares the relevant similarities and differences between two people, places, or objects. Compare and contrast essays can have a point-by-point or subject by subject organization
- Descriptive: depicts the attributes of a person, place, or object.
- Process Narration: explains how an event unfolds using time or space sequencing
- Problem and Solution: describes a problem and relays potential solutions
Ideally, you should provide students with expository essay models. If your language arts textbook does not provide such examples, you might use the grade appropriate examples from The Write Source.
Finally, explain to students that a thesis is a one-sentence unifying idea that guides any expository essay. Help students to find thesis examples in the essay examples you have provided.
Small Group Activities:
- Break students into small groups of three or more students.
- Ask each group to write thesis statements the class topic ("movies") that encompass each of the types of expository writing. Class Management Technique: Provide no more than 10-15 minutes for this activity.
- Take time to share and critique each group's thesis statements with the rest of the class.
Individual Activities (In-Class or Homework):
- For individual assessment ask students to write five "specifics" for three different general topics. Depending on the age and level of the class, you might assign the topics.
- Next, for each of the expository genres, have students write possible thesis statements for each general topic.
- Ask students to share their ideas with the class.
Once you are certain that students understand the organizational writing models for expository essays, you are ready to practice with expository paragraphs. Resist the temptation to have students write full-length essays until you are certain that students have a handle on how to write single effective paragraph.
