Brief Summary
This video provides a comprehensive guide to writing a five-paragraph essay about how a sudden physical change or disability would affect your daily routine. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the essay as a compare-and-contrast piece, focusing on the "before and after" aspects of the change. The video covers key steps such as choosing a specific change, outlining your normal daily routine, turning the topic into a question, creating a detailed essay map, and structuring the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.
- Understand the essay prompt and focus on daily routine changes due to a disability.
- Organize the essay as a compare-and-contrast piece, addressing "before and after" in each body paragraph.
- Create an essay map with three main points to support the thesis statement.
- Structure the introduction to describe the physical change and the conclusion to restate the introduction.
- Develop body paragraphs with 6-8 sentences, each addressing the topic question in a specific way.
Introduction to the Essay
The video introduces the Unit 2 writing project, an essay about change, framed as a compare-and-contrast piece. The essay prompt asks you to imagine waking up one morning with a significant change, such as a physical challenge or becoming elderly, and to consider how this change would affect your daily life. The essay should be five paragraphs long, approximately 600 words, and follow standard essay format with an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The core of the essay is to explore how your daily routine would differ if you were suddenly disabled or elderly, requiring you to use your imagination to detail these differences.
Deciding on the Change and Considering Your Routine
Before writing the essay, you need to decide on the specific change you will focus on, such as being in a wheelchair, or being mentally or physically disabled. It's important to consider your normal daily routine, including your schedule, activities, physical activity level, and dependence on others. Think about how these aspects of your life would be affected by the chosen disability. For example, living in a two-story house would present challenges if you were suddenly wheelchair-bound. Consider how a disability or physical change would affect various aspects of your daily life, such as your routine, mobility, activities, independence, work, entertainment, relationships, and health.
Turning the Topic into a Question and Essay Organization
The next step is to turn the essay topic into a question, such as "How would your daily routine change if you were suddenly disabled?" This clarifies the focus of the essay, which is your daily routine and how it would be affected by a sudden physical change or disability. The thesis statement, which comes at the end of the introduction, should answer this question and serve as the central point of your essay. All essays have three parts: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The body is typically the longest part, and in a five-paragraph essay, it is divided into three main points.
Understanding the Compare and Contrast Essay
This essay is a compare-and-contrast piece, requiring you to discuss both "before" and "after" the change. Avoid the common mistake of dedicating one body paragraph to "before" and another to "after." Instead, each body paragraph should address both the old and the new daily routine, highlighting how the disability has changed specific aspects of your life. In each of your body paragraphs you’re going to be discussing before change and after change.
Creating an Essay Map
Creating an essay map involves filling in the specific topics you will discuss in each body paragraph. Using the list of ways a disability can affect daily life (mobility, activities, independence, etc.), choose three main points to focus on. For example, you might pick mobility, activities, and independence. Your essay map will outline what each paragraph will cover: the introduction introduces the topic, the second paragraph discusses changes in mobility, the third covers changes in activities, and the fourth addresses changes in independence, followed by the conclusion.
Introduction and Conclusion Details
A good introduction is about five to six sentences long and serves to introduce the readers to the topic and provide a thesis statement that answers the topic question. Begin by describing the physical change or disability, providing enough background so that readers understand how it will affect your daily routine. The conclusion should restate the introduction, reminding readers of the topic and thesis. Avoid introducing new facts in the conclusion; it should simply summarize the main points made in the essay.
Body Paragraph Details
Each body paragraph should be about seven to eight sentences long and answer the topic question in a specific way. For example, if your main points are mobility, activities, and independence, each paragraph should address how each of these areas is affected by the disability. Because this is a compare-and-contrast essay, each body paragraph needs to address life before and life after the disability. Spend the first three sentences describing what your mobility was like before the disability, and the next three sentences describing your new level of mobility. Similarly, address activities and independence by comparing your daily life before and after the change.
