How to Write an Essay

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March 8, 2017 By Jennifer Lambert 11 Comments

When I entered university, I didn’t know how to write the typical 5-paragraph essay.

I vaguely remembered writing a literary research paper in 9th and again in 10th grade, with much hand-holding from the teacher, but I had a substitute teacher for my 11th and 12th grade years, so I basically sat in the back corner, by the window, and read poetry and classic novels. I started college early to escape.

In my second year or college, my Shakespeare professor kindly took me under his wing and tutored me in the essay format and I then took off with it, easily earning A’s in all my English courses.

I majored in literature, which was kind of a cop out and didn’t enable me to explore too many career options. I entered a 15-month master’s program to earn my M.Ed. and then I taught high school English for a few years. I moved on to teach college writing until we moved out of state and I had my babies.

Now I homeschool my four children. I don’t encourage formal writing until my kids are high school age. I don’t place a huge focus on typical English education. We read a lot and have lively discussions.

Essays are a bit more than a series of paragraphs thrown together. I explain the necessary parts of a well-written paragraph here.

Types of essays:

Most college essays require research and source citations. Different disciplines require different styles. I typically used MLA since I worked with literature. I love how easy these websites make generating source citations!

Citation Styles:

How to write an essay:

When I taught writing as a school teacher, I used to begin by pulling out an adorable copy of The Three Little Pigs and reading it aloud to the class.

Middle school, high school, college level. The students loved it and giggled, excited to be swept back to preschool storytime days.

It’s a well-known story, familiar and comfortable, so it takes the scary out of essay-writing when it’s so simplified.

After reading the book, I wrote on the board the outline format of the story.

The Three Little Pigs is a perfect 5-paragraph essay!

I. Introduction
II. Straw Pig
III. Stick Pig
IV. Brick Pig
V. Conclusion

Then, we would summarize the story together and I would jot down details on the outline.

Download a worksheet for summarizing The Three Little Pigs here.

Since I had to give grades and busy work to students in middle school and high school, I would assign them to quickly write up the summary in 5-paragraph format.

Then, we would segue into writing 5-paragraph essays on a variety of topics, working up to the dreaded literary analysis essay with citations and sources and references.

I like this handy dandy visual:

Review the format of a 5-paragraph essay:

Determine a thesis.
This is a statement that serves as the premise to be maintained or proved throughout the essay.
When I teach essay writing to new writers, I make the formula easy: State the argument including the 3 supporting statements. Place the thesis at the end of the introduction paragraph.
At least 3 supporting statements.
These three statements become the three body paragraphs. I typically require a resource quote for each paragraph.
Introduction paragraph.
The introductory paragraph attempts to accomplish these three things:
- Introduce the topic with some indication of its inherent interest or importance, and a clear definition of the boundaries of the subject area
- Indicate the structure and/or methodology of the essay, often with the major sections of the essay or its structural principle clearly stated
- State the thesis of the essay, preferably in a single, arguable statement with a clear main clause
Conclusion paragraph.
A conclusion paragraph attempts to accomplish these three things:
- It provides the reader with a sense of closure on the topic
- It demonstrates to the reader that you accomplished what you set out to do
- It shows how you have proved your thesis
Works Cited page.
This is a formatted list of research sources on a separate page after the essay. Many teachers and professors are very particular about spacing and punctuation.

Thesis Examples:

The three little pigs thwarted the big, bad wolf.
Albrecht Durer as a Reformation artist utilized color, symbolism, and secular subjects in his art to express the Protestant values of his peers.
Alice Walker coined the term “Womanism” to unify strong women of color, give them a voice, and differentiate from the more white Feminist ideals.

Tips:

Eliminate “to be” verbs. In data processing programs, search for these and replace with active verbs.
Do not use “you” or “I.”
No slang.
No contractions.
Wikipedia is not a credible source.
Use 1 quote per body paragraph. Make sure to introduce it and support it. Place it in the middle of the paragraph.

Teaching and writing essays shouldn’t be frightening. It’s easy when you follow a formula.

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How to Write a Paragraph

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September 15, 2016 By Jennifer Lambert 12 Comments

I have taught writing for many years – to middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college level. I was a writing and English tutor for also – to both public school students and homeschoolers.

We don’t use a writing curriculum in our homeschool because I am confident in my teaching methods.

We have reviewed IEW and it’s a good program. We’ve used workbooks, monthly calendar journal topics, and scripted curricula to see if it would help or interest my kids with writing.

I found most of it was worthless busy work.

We do lots of informal writing in journals and notebooking pages from preschool on. When left alone, kids love to write, mimicking their parents, elder siblings, anyone they see writing regularly. I keep regular prayer journals and we love notebooking.

I don’t teach English.

I never pressure my kids to write. I only encourage them to write formally in high school.

The early years are for the gathering of facts, memorizing, filling the empty bucket with so much knowledge, stored for use later on. These are the grammar years and we focus on play, experiential learning, basics of reading, writing, and math. Exploring with science and history and art and music and great literature. Journaling is more for handwriting practice with copywork, memorization, and fact recording. Form and quality is more important than quantity.

The middle years are for making connections with all that knowledge stored away. Grammar rules begin to make sense. I love to see the beginnings of self-correction in their behavior. The understanding of relationships among people, events, and experiences help with the overall comprehension of history, science, the arts, and literature. We continue to explore the world around us and journal about it more purposefully. I limit anxiety by eliminating grades – and correction unless asked. I begin teaching good writing methods, like eliminating slang, contractions, and filler phrases sucah as “needless to say.” I address indenting and correct pronunciation. Reader notebooks are a great way to interact with books and begin to synthesize with reading.

The upper years are for synthesis with the knowledge and connections. This is when abstract thinking comes into play. There’s no sense wasting time forcing kids to learn to write when they still can only think concretely. Sure, they can memorize the methods, but the magic is lost. Waiting until high school to encourage writing is so much more fulfilling. We work on analyzing literature, history, psychology, sociology – comparing and contrasting, research and criticism.

Here is a PDF file of my Paragraph Instruction outline.

I have used this paragraph outline with my own children, middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college level students.

The best way to learn how to write is to practice.

I don’t expect the same quality paragraph from an elementary student that I do from an 8th grader. I expect more from college students than I do high schoolers. But the difference lies mainly in complexity and vocabulary. The format is the same across the board.

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I Don’t Teach English

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January 28, 2016 By Jennifer Lambert 24 Comments

I was a real English teacher for over ten years.

I have taught 8th grade gifted and ESOL, advanced 9th and 10th graders, and university introduction to writing courses.

I don’t teach English in my homeschool. I don’t use a grammar, literature, or writing curriculum.

I realize I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to English.

I don’t really need a curriculum. I prefer to work alongside my kids instead of throwing a book or app or computer program at them to let them learn on their own.

I don’t have 150 students to track progress like I did when I was a classroom teacher. When I taught in public school, I had to have an opener on the board for the students to correct when they arrived to class. I spent 45+ minutes during each class period actively teaching, lecturing, and interacting with the students. Then, I had to provide a closer to summarize the lesson. This, times five class periods. I had to grade all the assignments, essays, quizzes, and tests – lots of which was busy work to track progress because I couldn’t possibly know how much each student understood every day. We had textbooks for grammar, vocabulary building, and literature…and sometimes novels – all with teacher guides I had to use.

With only 4 students in our homeschool, I have the ability of knowing exactly what each child needs to work on and when. I don’t have to issue busy work.

I have been disappointed with every curriculum I’ve seen for homeschool grammar, literature, and writing. They all fall short.

Writing Strands is sarcastic and flippant with little useful content. IEW is senseless busy work and geared for parents who are weak in verbal skills – why else do they have such extensive DVD teaching programs for teachers? There are so many workbooks (like Easy Grammar) with endless drills that just make students miserable and waste my precious time in grading and corrections. Progeny Press literature guides are a joke, relating everything in literature to the Bible with few literary theory or critical thinking questions. Some analogies are a real s-t-r-e-t-c-h. Sometimes, the curtains are just blue.

I’m not going to pay for some online or app program that claims to teach kids writing. I try to avoid more screentime. We use real books and paper for schoolwork.

We did use First Language Lessons in the very beginning – our first year. It has an actual script but I felt like an idiot reading from that. It’s ok for a transitioning or first time homeschooler or someone who really needs a script.

For early reading, my son loved All About Reading. He whizzed through pre-level to level 4 by the time he was 6! My middle daughters enjoyed The Logic of English. We loathed The Code books. We didn’t like the BOB books either.

After that, we don’t really use too much curriculum for spelling, writing, grammar, or reading. My girls like Spelling Workout even after they’re really fluent readers and writers, so I buy the little workbooks to keep them happy and occupied.

Sometimes, I print Education.com worksheets for when we travel.

What do we do instead?

We learn Latin.

We begin Prima Latina at age 8 or 9 and continue with Latina Christiana I and II and then the Forms. See our Prima Latina review.

We diagram sentences in Latin and English and that really helps with learning parts of speech and subject-verb agreement.

After that, the kids can choose to continue with Henle Latin and/or learn a modern foreign language – or Biblical languages like Greek or Hebrew.

We learn foreign languages.

My girls love learning German, French, and Greek. They play constantly on the Duolingo app.

Learning foreign languages helps to learn grammar: parts of speech, syntax, conjugations, and tense.

We read a lot. Like, a whole whole lot.

We don’t have any twaddle. We read living books and great literature.

The kids and I all read voraciously. It’s a good problem to have to beg the kids to read to do chores or school work.

I love the book lists on Ambleside Online.

We have extensive reading in literature and history with Story of the World and Tapestry of Grace.

We go to the library weekly and stock up on science, history, and literature corresponding to our studies.

We read missionary stories and biographies about artists and composers.

I strew books all over the house to expose my kids to great ideas. We have many books on our three Kindle app accounts.

We have family read aloud time every morning and evening with lots of different kinds of books – biographies, literature, poetry.

Summertime is full of free reading on whatever the kids like.

We like everything by Life of Fred. The Language Arts series is super fun! The kids read Life of Fred books all the time. My son loves the early readers for entertainment.

Mini-lessons are everywhere.

We often find spelling and grammar errors on restaurant menus and punctuation errors on signs and websites.

My teen daughter circled a random comma in her math text the other day and we all shared a laugh!

Even my middle girls are noticing when there are grammar errors in public or in eBooks or online.

I’m so proud.

If the kids have questions about writing or grammar, I have resources to show them to help them understand word origins, basic and advanced grammar, and the fundamentals of good writing. We also have The Elements of Style on my Kindle app for iPad. I’ll break out the Warriner’s sometimes too.

My teen daughter and I just read through King Alfred’s English. I wish it were better, but it’s an ok overview for kids.

We discuss.

It’s just natural for me to guide my kids in discussion about what we’re reading. I don’t need a teacher guide. Most of them are busy work and silly to us anyway.

I encourage them to narrate back to me so I know they comprehend what we read.

They often surprise me with their insight into a story, the connections they make to other things we’ve read or done or seen.

I love discussing things with my children. I love hearing what they think, like, dislike, feel…about what we read, learn, do.

Homeschooling is about connection.

We notebook.

I encourage notebooking from preschool on up. I keep notebooks and journals and model that for my kids.

When they’re old enough, they take information from our discussions and write it down.

The kids write a lot in journals when we travel.

The girls complete notebooking pages for science, history, and literature. I’m often very impressed when they go above and beyond. I give them freedom to write anything they find interesting. And I only require a few notebooking pages on important topics for each unit since I don’t want to overwhelm them. Since we cycle through 4 years of history, we build on prior knowledge each go-round and get more complex.

They love to complete biography pages about missionaries, artists, and composers.

My teen daughter has advanced comprehension and thinking questions with our main curriculum, Tapestry of Grace, about her literature, history, and worldview reading assignements to complete each week that help guide our discussions.

I don’t encourage formal writing until after age 10 or so.

I encourage my kids to write whenever they like – about anything. They often create fun little stories and books and even illustrate them!

I begin to teach proper sentence and paragraph structure after age 10 since little kids need to focus on other more important tasks – like playing. How to write a paragraph?

Whenever they show interest, or in high school, I teach research methods and citation as they begin completing research papers and literary analysis essays. How to write essays?

My middle girls and young son recently completed geography projects on India and China and Hawaii by their choice.

My teen daughter often writes and gives oral presentations for Civil Air Patrol. She won 1st place for her science fair project last year (and it was a doozy!). It entailed much research and recording data and writing up the information. And her work will be published in a real scientific journal!