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WRITING A SEVEN PARAGRAPH ESSAY |
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When you write an essay you should be writing it for yourself as much as for anyone else. Its not until you set pen to paper or start typing on the keyboard that you get to know how much you know about anything. An idea really only emerges at the point where you start to express it. Truly, you have no understanding of what ideas you have on a subject until you earnestly try to formulate something into words. As you sit down to write you allow something that you read, or heard or saw to get you going. The mind is a great reservoir wherin words from friends, siblings, parents, elders, teachers, writers, comedians, singers, actors and strangers are stored. Some words make an indelible impression on the mind and you never forget them for the rest of your life. If you are in the habit of carrying a little note book with you, the daily collection of jottings would soon grow into a sizeable personal collection of quotations, jokes and phrases. You will edit your collection as you go along and what you have in your book will be what you would like to go over again and again so that everything there becomes a part of you. When the time comes to write something you will revel in using what was interesting, surprising and gratifying for you in your collection. Other people's ideas and thoughts will in that instant become synthesised in your own thoughts. This is how you should approach writing. You should see it as a way of expressing yourself and through such expression finding a little of who you are. It does not matter whether you are writing about Hamlet or Okonkwo or Cricket or Violence in Our Time. What is important is what you have to reveal about yourself, your feelings and your deepest thoughts. Words and phrases without any structure will not keep any reader interested and what if that reader is your examiner? A well thought out structure will allow you and the reader to progress smoothly from the beginning to the end. A simple way of structuring a seven paragraph essay is to write down the first seven letters of the alphabet. Next to each write the words that follow. A - analysis B - background C - characteristics D - dynamics E - evolution F - forecast G - generalization Let us now take a topic and develop it according to the above structure. Topic: School Violence Analysis Behaviour disorders, bullying, unresolved aggression, abuse of drugs, race differences and many other social factors lead to outbreaks of violence in schools. There are millions of incidents of school violence all over the world and it is a grave concern that the violence is causing serious bodily harm and fatalities. Both learners and educators are the victims of the violence. I know from my own experience at school that ... Background The violence that we are witnessing in schools is not a new phenomenon. Many children in school are relentlessly bullied until something snaps within them and they turn on their tormentors with any weapon thay they can lay their hands on. Very few schools ever seriously consider the extent or the negative impact of bullying. Most bullies pick on a fellow learner for being too fat or too stupid or too something or the other. Those who are bullied and beaten have generally nowhere to hide and no one to protect them. Some take their own lives and others wreak vengeance on those who taunted and degraded them. School violence is waiting to happen where some learners relentlessly pick on their fellow learners. Our school is quite fortunate in that ... Characteristics School violence can take many different forms. Sometimes the victim lashes out at his tormentor with his bare hands. Sometimes sticks, rods and knives are used. Where the bullied have been grossly humiliated in front of their teachers who did nothing to protect them, the victims have come to school with guns and bombs and wreaked revenge on their teachers and classmates. School violence is not only about the victims turning the table on their tormentors. At times school violence is about learners ganging together to mob another learner or another group of learners for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the perpetrator of the violence in the school is the educator himself. In all instances someone is moved to the point where anger or frustration expresses itself in an act of physical violence. What I am observing here is not theoretical because I have personally witnessed ... Dynamics What are the dynamics that govern school violence? William Golding’s Lord of the Flies allows us to understand that there is no innocence in the world and that children like adults will prey on those who are weak and submissive. Those who are preyed upon look to resolving these issues themselves in order for them to have a better estimation of themselves. In some cultures any display of weakness is frowned upon and in the absence of proper strategies to address the issue, victimization will continue unabated and violence of one kind will be answered by violence of another kind. Nor must we forget that daily on our screens we witness how the aggrieved settle the score through the barrel of the gun. To address any serious problem it is essential to understand the underlying dynamics. Is this being done in our schools? I ... Evolution School violence once manifested itself in fisticuffs. More latterly it has taken a sinister form with live ammunition being used. Where will it end? This is a moot question. If school violence is not properly addressed victims will hit back with more destructive weapons and many more people will be seriously hurt or killed. From what I have seen in my school .... Forecast Incidents such as those that occured at Columbine will of necessity force educators to look seriously into the wide scale existence of school violence. Educators will need to be trained in understanding the underlying dynamics and providing suitable strategies for dealing with the bullying, taunting and ostracizing of learners in their schools. It is obvious that educators will have to be proactive in their own interest as well as in the interest of their charges. As I see it there is .... Generalisation It is sad that educators had waited until the tragedy at Columbine to begin looking at school violence. Violence is so widespread in our society that something has to be done to break that cycle and the school is indeed the best place for that to happen. My hope is that what happened in Columbine will not be allowed to recur again and that the memory of that tragic day will be kept alive so that educators will constantly address the issue and employ strategies that will allow for bullying and unresolved anger to be adequately dealt with. School violence has always existed and it has always wrecked young lives. In the times in which we live the violence has escalated because it is fuelled by many more factors and the consequences have been dramatic as they have been tragic. School violence has to be on the top of the government's agenda and there it must remain for all time if we .... |
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The structuring of an essay should not rigidly follow the scheme laid out above. Flexibility must always be employed and this can only happen if there is a proper understanding of the keywords used in plotting the structure. Let us therefore take a better look at each of the following words:- Analysis: The questions you have to ask are: What is the relevance of the topic in today's society? Does it have one side that is positive and another side that is negative? Has anything happened in recent time to propel the topic to the fore? Do you remember anyone sharing any experience, jokes or stories related to that topic? Have you read anything on it anywhere? What value do you personally attach to it? Background: What circumstances, events, experiments, tragedies or research had led to the topic becoming important, contentious or interesting? Did location, culture, natural disaster or anything else contribute to its becoming a significant topic? Is there any history that relates to the topic? Does one need to have any special information to help one understand the topic? Characteristics: How did the events sketched in the background impact on making whatever it was assume the characteristics it now has? For example, we know that kindness begets kindness; violence begets violence and life delivers something different to what we had planned for. Which of the following characteristics apply in this instance?
Dynamics: The word 'dynamics' refers to the social, intellectual, or moral forces that cause something to happen or to change. It is common knowledge that individuals are directly influenced by their own tastes and views as well as by the choices and characteristics of others. In terms of a well known adage no man is an island. Advertisements, the media, popular culture and social norms influence how people think, eat, dress and live. If corruption in high places is condoned it starts to rot the whole fabric of society. If business people are permitted to get away with fraud who will remain honest for long? There are dynamics that influence politics, business, education, entertainment, fashion, marriage and everything else. One needs to be alive to these dynamics. Aggrandizement, careerism, corruption, deceit, dishonesty, greed, jealousy, manipulation, nepotism, racism, selfishness, terror and violence underlie so much of what happens in our society. These underlying forces, largely negative, constitute the dynamics we have to understand and counteract for society to cohere. The forces for good are generally overwhelmed by the forces of evil and therefore a special effort has always to be called for.. Evolution: Society is always under threat and in recent times these threats have multiplied. We, as human beings, are racing ahead in terms of technology but we are at the same time laying waste our environment. Pollution is at its most extreme. Weapons exist that are capable of destroying our whole world. We are moving ahead and we are lagging behind at the same time. We eat better than we have ever eaten in the history of the world but our foods are less nutritious than ever. We have more medicines than ever before but we are becoming more unhealthy with each passing day. The dynamics that operate in society dictate that while somethings will improve other things will deteriorate. In many respects we are evolving in a way that poses serious challenges to all of us.We all need to be so V I G I L A N T about everything. Forecast: So where are we headed? What safety measures are we putting into place? Are we beginning to self destruct or do we have it in us to save ourselves and our world? Will tomorrow be better than today? What are the signs? What are the futurists saying? What do you have to say? Generalisation: What conclusion do you come to? What needs to be done? Who will do it? What assurance do you have that things will be taken in hand? In general, what is your final summation? How does this tie up with your opening remarks of this essay? -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. I would like to invite students to submit essays written by them for inclusion on this page. Please email your essay to me at: shen@iafrica.com . 2. Once you have mastered the art of writing a seven paragraph essay you can embellish it by using the following:- H - humour; I - imagination; J - jaundice (cynical state of mind) 3. Finally, you will need to deal with S3 - Style; Surprise and Simplicity. That will be your crowning achievement!
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