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LANGUAGE ARTS, WRITING II

Lesson I

THE ESSAY

Writing for a standardized test is a bit different than writing a critical essay for a teacher in a class. The essay is graded both by a computer and by a human, and your final grade comes from the average of these two grades. The computer cannot appreciate humor, puns, lyricism - all of the different writing tools that make your writing really interesting. Unfortunately, to do well on the GED essay, you have to use a specific format and write in a specific (read: dry) way. Since you will be writing under a strict time limit, you are not being graded on poetics and creativity. This essay measures your ability to use standard written English to form a coherent, critical essay on any given topic. The best way to confront the GED essay is to think of it as a formal question that requires a formal answer.

In the last lesson, you learned a great deal about writing mechanics. The same rules that you needed to learn in order to answer the multiple-choice writing questions are the same rules that apply to writing your own essay. Go back and review the previous lessons to make sure that you understand not only how to recognize these different rules, but also how to use them yourself. This lesson, we will discuss a few different tools and tricks, most specifically how to plan for and properly construct a GED-appropriate essay.

FORMAT

The layout of your essay is very important. There is a standard 5-paragraph format that you should follow when writing a critical essay for the GED. A new paragraph is indicated by indenting your first sentence by five spaces. When you are writing your essay on paper and not on a computer or typewriter, you should leave about an inch of blank space between the left-hand margin and the first word of your sentence to indicate a new paragraph.

The 5-paragraph format is comprised of an introductory paragraph, three paragraphs of content, and a concluding paragraph. Your introductory paragraph includes your thesis statement. In this case, the thesis statement is your answer to the question. If the question is, “Television is detrimental to the young people of today – do you agree or disagree?” you can be so explicit as to say: “In response to the question of whether or not television is detrimental to young people, I would have to agree.” While it’s a good idea to restate the question in your own words, this is an adequate response. Granted, it is just the first sentence of your essay and you will have to develop your reasoning behind the response in the rest of the essay. After the introductory paragraph, you will have three paragraphs of support and explanation, also called the “body” of the essay. Finally, you will have the concluding paragraph, where you draw the reader back to your original thesis statement, expand upon it, and conclude. The conclusion is the space you have to show the significance of your topic in a meaningful way and tie it in to a more universal theme.

THE OUTLINE

Now that you know how your essay should be set up, let’s talk about the importance of making an outline before you begin to write the essay. When writing a timed essay, you want to make sure that you leave enough time for the actual writing process, so your outline should be abbreviated. Using a piece of scratch paper or a margin of your test booklet (not your answer sheet), jot down a word or two that indicates the different points you want to make in response to the essay question. Let’s say the question is, “What do you see yourself doing in the next ten years?” First, take a minute to think about your response. What are you currently doing (taking the GED, working, trying to get into college, taking care of your kids, etc.), and what do you want to be doing? Working a better job, doing volunteer work, traveling to another country, putting your kids through college? You will not be graded on the creativity of your answer, though there is nothing wrong with a creative answer, as long as you can support your answer fully. Let’s say you answer that you want to travel. Your outline may look something like this:

• In ten years, I see myself traveling to another country. (Introduction)
• Always been very interested in other cultures, and particularly in foreign cuisine (1st paragraph)
• Growing up, didn’t have the money for traveling (2nd paragraph)
• Took an Indian cooking class recently – solidified my interest in eastern cultures and inspired me to travel to India (3rd paragraph)
• In ten years, I hope to have saved enough money to go to India and live with an Indian family. (conclusion)

As you can see, this is a brief outline that separates different ideas related to your answer. The first bullet of the outline corresponds to what your opening sentence should explain. The opening sentence should directly address the question posed. The following points relate and expand upon your answer, providing personal background to support your answer, explaining why you have not yet achieved your goal, and finishing with a proposal for how you will achieve the goal. If you don’t try to outline what you are going to say, the cohesiveness of your essay will suffer.

An outline is a plan of what you’re going to write. Its okay to change your outline as you write; it’s just a basic order for you to follow. Outlines help you structure your thoughts so that they appear on the paper in a way that not only makes sense, but that makes your writing stronger and easier to follow. The outline ensures that your thoughts follow a logical order and that you do not stray too far from your topic.

In summary, before you start to write you should try to do these four things:

1. Take a minute to think about what you are going to say.

2. Put your ideas into words (brainstorm!).

3. Figure out the order in which your ideas should be written.

    (outline)

4. Write your outline down on paper.

CONTENT

Now, of course we need to discuss how to develop the body of your writing. Your outline won’t be that interesting all on its own, as it is comprised of brief, bare statements that need to be expanded. There are three key rules for writing up one of your ideas:

1. Use detail.

2. Follow a natural order.

3. Stick to your subject.

The addition of details is important because it makes a story seem more personal and provides support for your statements. Following a natural order means that you use your ideas to build up to your main idea and that you end up with your strongest point or argument. Basically, start small and finish off with a bang! And now you know that sticking to your subject is absolutely necessary in order to prevent losing your focus and confusing your reader.

TOPIC SENTENCES

Another key tool for writing a clear essay is using a topic sentence at the beginning of each of your paragraphs. This lets your reader know what you will be addressing in your paragraph. Topic sentences keep the reader on the path that you have laid out for them. A topic sentence should then be followed with an explanation or description that directly corresponds to it. Basically, you want to make sure that all of your ideas are tied together in a way that makes sense to yourself and to the reader.

For example, if we follow the outline laid out above, let’s pretend that we are writing the first paragraph of the body of the essay. (The topic sentence is in bold face).

SAMPLE INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH

Ever since I was a young child, I have expressed a deep interest in traditions and cultures that are different from my own. I think that my cultural curiosity began when I realized that in some parts of the world, people did not eat meatloaf every Sunday evening at 6pm. This culinary deviation from the dinner tables of eastern Idaho opened my mind to the “foreign” cookbook section in our local library. The hours I spent poring over recipes for raita, samosa, and coconut chutney solidified my interest in Indian cuisine and inspired my impossible dreams of traveling to that fragrant, far-off country.

In the above paragraph, you can see that the first sentence is the topic sentence. It focuses the topic for the rest of the paragraph, providing a structural foundation. The rest of the paragraph expands upon the topic sentence, adding clarity and depth.

REVISING

One of the things that many people think is the least enjoyable part of writing is the revision process. But this is the time when you can tweak your concepts and finesse your writing in a way that you can’t when you write out your ideas for the first time. Try to leave at least 5 minutes at the end to go over what you have written and fix awkward sentence transitions, misspelled words, and incorrect grammar or punctuation. You’ll be amazed how rewriting can help you smooth out transitions, fix anything that doesn’t say what you meant to say and make your writing flow.

WORD CHOICE

Finally, it is always a good idea to be creative with your vocabulary, but be wary of throwing around words of whose meaning you are not 100% sure. ONLY USE WORDS THAT YOU UNDERSTAND. It does not look impressive to the graders to see big, complicated words used incorrectly. If you’re sure that you are using the word correctly, then by all means, add it in. More important than the length of the word is simply the amount of word variation that you include. Nobody wants to read the same adjective in every sentence of your essay. “Really good,” “nice,” “fun,” “pretty,” “bad”: these are boring descriptors that are not formal enough for the GED essay. Replace them with adjectives like “exquisite,” “enjoyable,” “amusing,” “appealing,” “dreadful.” These words add a depth of description that the simpler words lack. However, it is more important to have a solid essay structure, correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation, than to have a creative vocabulary. Focus on these other imperative skills while you are writing, and then go back and see if you can spice up your word choices.

Back: Sample Essay Questions | Next: Writing Section 2: Summary

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