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. 

Eurolit Homework for 11/16/18

Re-read: Henry V as needed

Augment your notes

Honors 9 Homework for 11/16/18


Read: Jack London's "To Build a Fire" Twice

Write: Finish paragraph packets (add to Google Doc)

Due Monday

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

This is a narrative poem – it tells a story. There is a denotative meaning (literal), and also a deeper, more symbolic meaning.

Words have certain associations. We have the concept of something that goes beyond its literal meaning. The better the symbol, the more associations it invites.

There are universal, cultural, and personal symbols. We decipher personal symbols by looking at how the author uses the symbol in the poem/literary work.

Ask yourself what the poem means, but also how the author establishes that meaning. Where do you get a sense of where the poem is not just a simple, denotative story.

One literary device is simple repetition. In the last line, Frost repeats the line “And miles to go before I sleep”.  Might this be suggestive of something more? What do you associate with sleep? Death.

What does Frost mean when he refers to the “darkest evening of the year”? What do you associate with “deep”? Profundity or wisdom. The poem establishes and strengthens its symbolic meaning through the use of figurative language and word choice.

When the poem starts, the author has a moment of self-consciousness, meaning he has a moment of awareness where he sees himself and asks why has he been sitting in the snow. What kind of being is he that sees these trees as woods?

The foil between the author and the horse establishes the author’s consciousness as separate from that of the horse. People have a different type of consciousness. We are aware that we are aware. Animals do not have this sense of their own being. This is an existential poem.

We have been introduced to Existentialism before now. We saw it in both “Old Man and the Sea” and “Siddhartha”.

Jack London (1876-1916) only lived to be 40 years old. Read more about his life online.

Man’s reach should exceed his grasp. We are self-surpassing beings. We are able to surpass ourselves because we have an awareness of ourselves.

Literary periods are spans of time in which literature shared intellectual, linguistic, religious, and artistic influences.

Romanticism à Realism à Naturalism à Existentialism

Herman Hesse was a neo-Romantic writer. They saw nature as everything and believed we are not able to logically understand nature. We are meant to go too far. This is how man becomes self-surpassing. We are the ones that create the idea of how or what heaven is, in order to reach for it.

In Naturalism, we exceed the bounds meant for us by nature, instead of the gods or fates. In Naturalism, there is an inevitable outcome – nature always wins. There are some Naturalists who say that there is nothing that is not natural. There is nothing that goes beyond the material. It is called Naturalism because of Charles Darwin’s natural selection (1859). Darwin is saying that we all are descended from one common progenitor. We are all objects. Naturalism is extreme objectivity. We are all just material things.

Existentialism: Descartes came up with the concept of “cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore, I am). We have, thus, the idea of mind vs. matter, or mind/body dualism. Descartes has to negate, or doubt, the existence of everything in the universe. However, he cannot doubt himself, because he experiences his own mind. Therefore, he can only confirm the existence of himself. That which transcends matter is the mind. 

It is called Existentialism because people are the only beings whose existence comes before their essence. This leads to the idea that our existence pre-supposes our essence, which feeds into the Existential belief that we do not have any inherent meaning; rather, we create our own meaning (essence). 

Eurolit Homework for 11/13


Read: Henry V as needed

Augment: your notes

Honors 9 Homework for 11/13/18

Study for Siddhartha Test Tomorrow

Siddhartha Study Guide

Characters

Siddhartha - protagonist, searches for enlightenment, forges his own path, individualism is important

Govinda- Siddhartha’s friend and follower, becomes a follower of the Buddha, Siddhartha’s character foil

   

The Samanas- wandering ascetics who shun the material world in hopes of attaining spiritual insights

Gotama (Buddha) - religious leader, founder of the Buddhist faith, based on the historical Buddha, teaches not to love but to have compassion

Kamala - Siddhartha’s lover, mother of his son, represents the physical or sensual world

The Son - the story comes full circle when Siddhartha’s son teaches him to love and then suffer, Siddhartha must let him so so that he can follow his own path

Kamaswami - the merchant, Siddhartha’s employer in the town

Vasudeva - the ferryman, achieved enlightenment, teaches Siddhartha to listen to the river

Plot

External Conflict - Will Siddhartha reach enlightenment?

Internal Conflict - Will Siddhartha be able to accept and love all parts of himself?

Climax (p. 72) - Siddhartha has a spiritual reawakening after he contemplates ending his life.

Allusions/Allegory - The story is allegorical in that it is a simple story with a deeper symbolic meaning. Siddhartha’s journey is physical but his path to spiritual enlightenment is highly symbolic.

Point of View - Siddhartha’s perspective for the first 11 chapters -- then it changes to Govinda’s p.o.v.

Theme (A comes back to A, but is no longer A.)

   

What changes?  Siddhartha. He achieves enlightenment and accepts every part of himself, which includes loving his son and suffering because of his love.

What makes it change? Siddhartha’s experiences. Namely his relationship with and loss of his son. He truly suffers as a result of his love and thus has to learn to accept his suffering.

Why does the author have it change that way? To arrive at the theme.

The theme is: If all is one, then we must learn to love all.

Symbolism:

The River - unity, timelessness, enlightenment

The Caged Bird - Siddhartha’s spiritual self, or his connection to the spiritual world

The Ferryman/Ferry - the bridge between two extremes, the middle path

Smile - enlightenment

   

The Voice - not entirely clear, but seems to be Siddhartha’s connection to the spiritual world or his soul

Hero’s Journey (Call to Adventure, Threshold, Mentor, Helper, Challenges/Tests, Abyss, Transformation, Return, Boon)

Call - Siddhartha is unhappy and wants to find enlightenment.

Threshold - The Samanas come into town and he leaves the known world to follow them.

Mentor - Himself, the Buddha, Kamala, the Ferryman, the river

Helpers - Govinda

Challenges and Tests - Numerous (one example is becoming a Samana and practicing self-denial)

Abyss - Siddhartha almost ends his own life, but hears the Voice again and feels a connection to the Brahman.

Transformation - Achieves enlightenment.

Boon - Knowledge/Wisdom (one example is that Siddhartha learns that “time is not real” on p. 115)

Main Ideas:  Love, Sansara, Enlightenment, Oneness, Suffering, Transcendance, Wisdom Through Experience, Individualism, Asceticism (Self-Denial)

East vs. West (in order to experience the oneness of all things, a person must follow their own individual path) There are many examples of the coming together of Eastern and Western ideas.

Existentialism: a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.

The coming together of these two traditions is shown in various ways throughout the novel. One example is that, although this narrative is set in India and the characters espouse the beliefs of Eastern religion, Siddhartha must live authentically and follow his own path to achieve enlightenment. Thus, we see Siddhartha’s experience of the spiritual unity of all things (oneness) realized through the living an authentic life and following an individual path (Existentialism).