Essay Writing for High School Students

Often students get to the end of a book or a learning unit and don’t know how to demonstrate understanding to their teachers or parents. They enjoyed the book, they did their homework, but they struggle to write an eloquent thoughtful paper. This course is designed to help.

In this course, students will focus on the first three canons of rhetoric: invention, organization, and style.

Invention: what to say Organization: arranging what to say Style: making what you say sound good

Using thoughts from the book “Office of Assertion” as a framework, students will learn how to write various types of introductions and conclusions, how to formulate a thesis that captures their argument and reveals the organization of their essay, as well as how to support their thesis with evidence.

Course Objectives

• To read a text carefully and critically.
• To formulate an argument based upon evidence from the text.
• To develop confidence in essay organization and structure.
• To improve academic tone in student writing.

Text

Various biographies and short stories selected by instructor

Office of Assertion, Dr. Scott Crider