Writing a Five-Paragraph Essay (Re-post)

An essay is a group of paragraphs with one controlling idea. The controlling idea is the thesis statement. 

Writing is thinking on paper. 

Avoid plot rehashing. You don’t want to summarize the plot. You want to state your thesis and provide evidence from the text to support this thesis. Your thesis is an interpretation of the literature. 

A five paragraph essay contains an introductory paragraph, three body paragraphs supporting and explaining the thesis, and a conclusion. Every part of your essay should support your thesis. 

A story starts off at Point A. It eventually comes back to Point A, except A is no longer A because something has changed. 

You have to ask three or four basic questions to get to the main point:

1 What changes?

2 What makes it change?

3 In what way does it change? (You ask this question sometimes, but not always.)

4 Why does it change?

When you answer questions you have arrived at the theme. 99% of the time it is the main character or protagonist that changes. Mostly, this ends up being a character analysis. 

One of the best ways to write a good essay is to know the nuts and bolts, because that provides you with examples to use within your writing. You have to funnel these examples down to the best examples and quotations. Further, you must make sure that you understand the essay prompt and respond to it accurately and directly. 

Always use present tense verbs when you write about literature. 

Never use the pronouns I or you. 

What changes in “Daedalus”?

In the beginning Daedalus is happy. The text says he is “honored by all men”. What changes in the end is that he is no longer happy. The proof of this is in the text. In the end Daedalus watches his son’s body plummet into the sea. 

What makes Daedalus unhappy? 

Icarus develops the excessive pride Daedalus has. What causes Daedalus to be unhappy is, essentially, that “his pride raced away with his wits.” He has Hubris. In other words, his story follows the Homeric Pattern. He was striving to be the best and most excellent. He wanted to be the greatest inventor of all time. He has too much pride and goes too far. He commits Ate and faces Nemesis (the death of his son). 

In what way does he change? 

Daedalus realizes that having excessive pride is not good when his son dies. He come to this realization too late. 

Why does the author have Daedalus change this way? 

One of the purposes of myth is to teach ethics. It is wrong to have excessive pride (Hubris). Therefore, we should know ourselves (gnothi seaton) and stick to the middle (meden agan). Don’t fly too high or too low. Thus, we have arrived at our theme. 

There is a cliche we have that comes from this myth: “Pride goeth before the fall.” 

Characters are also symbols. Daedalus is a symbol for humanity. We have this pattern as part of our nature. 

Often, people who attain excellence have a pattern of behavior that causes them to fall of their own accord. 

Is pride itself a bad thing? No. Is excessive pride a bad thing? According to the rhapsode, it is. 

Five Paragraph Essays:

The essay should have a title. It should not be “Daedalus Essay”, but something that fits your main thesis. 

In the intro paragraph, there will be a thesis statement. It is the last sentence in the first paragraph. This paragraph will also state the name of the author and the title of the work. It might include the genre of the work and some historical or biographic information about the author. The intro paragraph also briefly states the three reasons you have come to your thesis opinion. There is also a hook. The very beginning sentence (or sentences) hooks the reader’s interest. You should also include any definitions that are necessary for the reader to understand your argument (in this essay you will want to define the Homeric Pattern). You also want to plant the “big picture seed”. The “big picture seed” will work together with the hook and the title, so that the reader will already know what you are going to say in your conclusion paragraph. 

What happens in the body (middle three) paragraphs is argument form. This means that everything goes back to the thesis opinion. You have to have three main reasons (each has its own paragraph) why the thesis opinion is right. Then you will have examples and quotations from the text which support this opinion. Finally, you will have an explanation which supports your quotations. Ultimately, your explanations support your quotations/examples, which support your main reasons, which support your thesis statement. 

Thesis statement > Main Reasons (3) > Examples > Quotations > Explanations 

A thesis statement includes the thesis opinion, three reasons, author, title, and genre.

Never lose focus on the thesis opinion. A thesis opinion is the part of your thesis statement that states the focus of your essay. 

The conclusion paragraph will have a thesis re-statement. You will state the thesis again but in a different way. An essay gets one opinion — the thesis opinion. You have to explain your examples and show big picture thinking. You could also compare what you are writing about to something else. Whenever you compare two things you have to keep them balanced. You could also use a critical technique in your conclusion. This means that you agree or disagree with the main theme. Whatever you chose, you need to demonstrate that you really understand the bigger picture.

For our three reasons, we could write about the Homeric Pattern. Which characters follow the Homeric Pattern? Daedalus, Icarus, Pasiphae, and Minos. We only have three paragraphs. We could group them together. In paragraph one, we could write about Daedalus and Icarus. In paragraph two, we could write about Queen Pasiphae and King Minos. That leaves an extra paragraph. 

Remember, characters are always a positive or negative example of the theme. The previously mentioned characters are all negative examples of excessive pride. If we include Talos, an example of a character who did not have excessive pride, in paragraph three, it would round out our essay and provide further support for our thesis. 

The last sentence in a body paragraph is known as a “clincher sentence”. It sums up the whole body paragraph and ties it back to the thesis opinion.

Don’t forget your transitions and topic sentences. 

Do not just give opinions. You need evidence and explanation.

The last sentence in the essay it the “Ta-Da Sentence”. It is your last chance to summarize your thinking and tie everything together.