Students, we are making real progress with our ‘Breathing Life into Essays’ unit of study. You are starting to realize that you don’t have to have “the perfect essay” done at this stage (or ever) and that the goal is to learn how to craft an essay using a variety of different strategies including the ones we looked at in class today. I am proud of you.

For homework tonight, take your latest thesis statement and try 2 or 3 of the following techniques in your writer’s notebook.

Practice using different sets of evidence to support one thesis statement. Read each thesis statement below and try supporting it using: kinds, parts, reasons, ways and finally, times when. Try to come up with three statements that support the claim for each of those types of support. If another way of supporting the thesis makes sense to you, of course try that way too!

Here’s an example of a thesis followed by ways to set up evidence that could support it:

Essay Possibility #1 (Kinds)
Fifth graders work hard; we study, we babysit our siblings, we help our parents.

Essay Possibility #2 (Parts)
Fifth graders work with three parts of themselves. They work with their bodies, they work with their emotions, and they work with their intelligence.

Essay Possibility #3 (Reasons)
Fifth graders work hard because we want to do well at school, because we want to please our parents, because we want to develop skills.

Essay Possibility #4 (Places/Ways)
Fifth graders work hard. We work hard in school, at home, and during sports.

Essay Possibility #5 (Times)
There are three times when fifth graders’ lives are filled with work. Fifth graders work before school, they work during school, and they work after school.

Remember the “Pie is good” example we did in class, don’t be worried if you can’t fit one of the above sets of evidence with YOUR thesis statement…just try the next one!