How to draft a good essay in one and a half hours.

How you do prewrite, develop, and draft a good, solid essay draft which will get you into 111 in just an hour and a half?

Look at my post below. If you follow the time frame I set up, you’ll end up with a fully developed draft. Remember, producing a draft is what you are about. You’ll have another class period to revise and proofread your draft. The main mistake students make in writing these in class essays is trying to rush through. Don't try to rush the steps you need to take prior to drafting your paper. Taking the time to narrow your topic, develop a thesis, and write out the topic sentences for your body paragraphs will make each later step that much easier, and you'll have a very firm idea of your essay's thesis and body before you get involved in drafting.

1. Brainstorm/Freewrite/Diagram/List. (5-10 minutes)

Here, explore what you have to say about your topic and try to figure out how to narrow it, decide on a focus, and explore what you know about it.

2. Develop and draft your thesis statement. (5-10 minutes)

Build on your discoveries above to develop a good, solid these statement. By doing so, you’re setting up both your focus for your paper, that is, your major claim, and how you will discuss your topic, that is, the good reasons you'll give your reader for believing your claim. Making these decisions early will help you better understand the topics you'll need to focus on in the body of your essay.

3. Draft the topic sentences for each body paragraph. (5 minutes)

Remember, you are using each paragraph to fully develop one aspect of your thesis statement; so, don’t get off topic and loose your focus on your thesis.

4. Develop and draft the body of your paper. (45 minutes)

Divide this time by the number of topics you need to cover in your body. You will know how long you have to spend on each paragraph by looking at your thesis and the topic sentences you developed above. For each paragraph, you will take your topic sentence and fully develop it in a paragraph. Remember, the purpose of each of these paragraphs is to fully clarify, explain, develop, or describe what you say in your topic sentence. Be careful that you don’t loose focus on your thesis statement and that you stay on topic. Finally, remember that academic paragraphs are longish, usually, more than six sentences.

5. Draft your introduction. (15 minutes)

Remember, you’ll need a good hook sentence and a strategy for moving your reader from the outside world, through your hook sentence and toward your thesis sentence. Your thesis statement will usually make up the last sentence or two of your introduction.

6. Draft your conclusion. (10 Minutes)

I’ll discuss how to write a conclusion more next week.