Essays of Definition: Lively Writing through Professional Models

This lesson examines a professional model of a definition paper and asks students to analyze and imitate the structures of using anecdotes and cause and effect to elaborate an essay of definition.

A lesson plan for grade 9 English Language Arts

By Margaret Ryan

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Learning outcomes

Students will examine a professional model of an essay of definition, analyze the effect of using anecdotes and cause/effect relationships to develop an essay of definition, and practice using anecdotes and cause/effect structures in their own writing.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

3 Hours

Materials/resources

• Overhead and transparency film
• Student copies of Jo Goodwin Parker’s “What is Poverty?” available on-line at: http://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/135/JGParker.html
• Colored highlighters

Technology resources

Internet access

Pre-activities

If this is used as a revision strategy, students will need to have already written an essay of definition.

If it is used to introduce the essay of definition, students will need to have been instructed in Writer’s Workshop framework and have formed a level of comfort with a peer group.

Activities

Minilesson: Modeling Activity

1. Tell students that professional writers often use a short personal experience anecdote to add pizzazz to an otherwise dry piece of expository writing.
2. Illustrate a boring definition by putting a paragraph like the following on a transparency:

   Prejudice is a problem that most people face at some time in their lives. The word “prejudice” comes from the root word “to judge” and the prefix “pre” meaning “before.” In human terms, prejudice means that someone in a situation has judged another person before knowing that individual as a person. For example, someone might assume that someone who is Arabic would be someone who is anti-American and dangerous. A person who prejudges another person only sees that person as an example of a type, not as an individual.

3. Choose a point in the paragraph where you would want to insert an anecdote to illustrate the concept of prejudice that you are defining. For example, in the above paragraph, an anecdote might fit after the sentence “For example. . . dangerous.”
4. Cut the transparency after this sentence and tape the transparency onto a blank transparency sheet with space between that sentence and the next sentence. You have created a “window” for adding additional information. Tell students you want them to help you make your writing more interesting. To do this, they will first examine a professional model.
5. Break them into groups and give students copies of “What is Poverty?” by Jo Goodwin Parker: http://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/135/JGParker.html.Their group assignment is to read the essay in their groups and answer the following questions:
   
   • To define “poverty,” this author describes the experiences of a character or persona to “show” poverty, not just tell about it. Your group has been assigned one section of the essay. In the section your group has been assigned, how does the author illustrate the concept of “poverty?”
   • What effect did this description have on your ideas of what “poverty” is?
6. Come back together as a class and have groups share their answers to the questions about their section.
7. Then in a “Shared Writing” activity in the blank space of the transparency as a class, write in a descriptive anecdote or scenario to illustrate “prejudice.” For example:

   My friend Omar experienced prejudice recently at the airport. When he approached the check-in counter, he was waved over to the table on the side and the officials examined each item in his suitcase. They took out his computer and turned it on to check each drive. They unwrapped all of the presents he was taking back to his family in Iraq and even punctured some of the filled chocolate candies. They took out each item from his meticulously packed suitcase and watched while he repacked each item. What they did not know was that Omar is an American and a patriot of the most loyal type. They were prejudging him based on appearances.

8. Finish the Modeling stage of the lesson by discussing with the students how much more effective and interesting the paragraph is when it includes an anecdote as an elaboration strategy.

Guided Practice

1. Instruct students to go to their working portfolios and find a paragraph that would benefit from inserting an anecdote or scenario to illustrate a point. Students might need to re-read the Parker definition essay to internalize the strategy.
2. Have them cut and paste their paragraph just as you did the transparency to create a “window” for revising the paragraph.
3. Assign them to use an anecdote to describe “prejudice.”
4. Give students the paragraph rubric.

Closure

• Students peer review revised paragraphs based on the rubric and provide feedback.

Assessment

• Students have written a paragraph that uses an anecdote or scenario that meets the “In the Zone” category on the rubric.
• Students have correctly analyzed paragraphs written by their peers to determine that they are “In the Zone” as compared to those that need additional work.

Supplemental information

http://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/135/JGParker.html

Related websites

Definition Essays
http://virtual.parkland.edu/jforman/expository/DefinitionEssays.htm

Comments

This lesson was created as part of the NCDPI Writing Lessons for the Writing Features workshop (Elaboration and Support).