How to write the essays from our topics

An intersection is the place where two roads or ideas meet, the cross roads.


At the intersection, two possibilities present themselves to challenge us. We can’t go both directions at the same time, so we have to choose and go on about our business. We can, however, enjoy each intersection, like Times Square, Height Ashbury, Hollywood and Vine, as a singular event in our lives. These events call on us to become our best in these unique moments: graduates, married, employed, parents, best friends, or hero. Each of us come a intersections in our lives where we must leave behind the innocence and comfort of what we have known and become more real and more honest with ourselves. These intersections in our lives require of us that we change; to do otherwise is to attempt to avoid to grow up and become ourselves. To do otherwise is to live our lives as a fake.
Let’s enter every intersection then with caution. Be careful for oncoming traffic, but also be careful to enjoy the sights on every corner. What you are passing are opportunities to engage those who are waiting at the intersection, waiting their turn, but also waiting to help you understand more about why your yourself are at that particular intersection.


These are major hints on how to approach learning:

1. This cannot be about being forced or shamed.

2. Don’t be or take an emotional hostage.

3. Gather what you will need for the long journey ahead.




Think of these essay assignments as the intersections of two concepts or ideas that create single topics. Learning how two ideas combine together to make a single concept gives you a powerful skill. If you come to see each one of these new topics you master as a new tool that will help you understand and define more deeply who you are and what you want out of life, you will gain the skills you need to succeed. These skills teach us how to use words more powerfully because how we define the terms we use in life limits or broadens the conversations we are having with ourselves and others. If we are fuzzy in our thinking, we can confuse others when we talk, and we are less likely to get our own needs met. This is an exercise in learning how to combine ideas and make them work together for us. Use the following pairs of words as a base for making your own topic sentences in order to give your thinking direction and purpose.

1. Plot and Organization (See the notes for each essay to help yourself out.)

In plot and organization essays, the writer discusses how making choices in life brings consequences which then force us to deal with circumstances that we have created through those choices. Our willful actions create cause and effect links which organize our lives into patterns of cause and effect, which are not unlike dominoes that are knocked down when stacked next to each other on a table; one falls and all the others fall as a consequence. Students can learn that making better choices increases the potential for better consequences. These essays support the main idea that, “We all make choices, and these choices create consequences in our lives.”

2. Character and Voice (The expression here is "with voice," not "with a voice.")

In character and voice essays, the writer shows how telling the truth works in our lives through our revealing who we are, thus making us less fake and more real. Telling the truth is hard to do if we are trying to cover things up that we don’t want others to know, but then it is hard to be real if we are always living a lie and pretending to be something that we are not. If we are ever going to be able to live honestly and stop being hypocrites, it is going to start with our telling the truth. This will force us to stop judging others until we can live up to our own hype, which in fact will never happen absolutely. If we all told the truth, at least we would know where we all stand, and knowing each other’s truth, we would stop being judgmental! This is not a question of being good or bad, this is a question of integrity. If we, teachers and students, are going to have to lie to do something, then we ourselves are hypocrites, plain and simple. These essays support the main idea that, “Speaking in voice forces us to be honest with ourselves and others, and this in turn creates integrity and humbleness.” (Don't say this in your paper if you don't understand it!)



3. Setting and Sentence Fluency (This includes the sentences you use yourself.)

In setting and sentence fluency essays, the writer explores how the sounds we hear help us to identify the time and place where and when a story, poem, or moment in our lives takes place. Obviously, this would work for all of the senses if we had time to go through taste, sight, smell, and touch, but this is one that authors almost always use and is easier to explain. Anything in our lives that has sound helps to shape our sense of our surroundings, and so it is natural for us to use our sense of hearing to help keep track of things going wrong by our using our hearing as a guide. We match up the time and place with the sounds we hear, and this helps us to locate ourselves on many levels, and so knowing the real setting is essential at all times. If our own sentences don’t sound honest and real then this is a cue for others that we are lying or covering something up, for instance. These essays support the main idea that, “We use our hearing to help us identify the naturally safe or unsafe time and place of a story.” (Be careful to really listen.)

4. History and Word Choice (Define these terms; the country is NOT the title.)

In history and word choice essays, the writer identifies the different parties or sides of an argument. There are many different ways to skin a cat or put spin on a story, and history has more interpretations than almost anything except religious texts. If we are talking about the history of a country, for example, as in this case, there are potentially the passive natives, the active explorers, the rebellious natives, and the natives who are willing to take advantage of their neighbors and sell them out for a buck. This pattern is as old as dirt and has been around since there were 4 people trying to agree on what to have for breakfast. Students can apply this analytic technique to any speech or writing, including their own. These essays support the main idea that, “We know that there are different ways to communicate what has happened, depending on what outcome the different historians want to frame or support as the one that best communicates their interpretation of the facts that are known.” (Do not repeat this as if you wrote it.)

5. Biography and Conventions (Start with the idea of "conventional wisdom.")

In biography and conventions essays, the writer looks at the life of the author, characters, or other persons, and tries to determine if these persons are normally this way or are sounding an alarm about a particular subject. Right away we can guess that most authors have an axe to grind because they are, for some reason, motivated to write in the first place. Most writers have internally pressing ideas, and this paper asks what that motivation might be. Here, the student looks at his or her own writing too, and asks if the way he or she is writing uses the standards or conventions of writing. In this way, the essay makes the student reflect on the process of writing as a practice of communication. Is it normal to communicate so deeply? Why are we so driven to talk about ourselves so much? Certainly we speak deeply during a crisis, but where are these feelings when we are in our everyday lives? Students, for example, who forget who they are while trying to impress their friends, may get into a lot of trouble for the sake of looking like tough or funny guys in front of the authorities, for the few laughs it may get them and as long as it lasts. Teachers can become petty tyrants and forget themselves too, and forget that the students, in fac,t do not know these things, otherwise they would not be in these classes in the first place. These essays support the main idea that, “Whether we know it or not, we are communicating our true selves every time we communicate; how conscious we are that we are doing this is a matter of seeing our true motivation.” (Identify the standards.)

6. Theme and Idea (Look for the patterns that repeated ideas make.)

In theme and idea essays, the writer examines the patterns made by the ideas around him or her. In some stories the same ideas or actions repeat over and over, threaded throughout the story. The author has the power to include or exclude them, but he chooses by an act of the will in writing or speech to include these ideas in his story. He, or she, is giving us notice of the theme or main idea of his conversation or writing. By following these patterned threads, we can learn about hidden meanings and intentions, the sub-textual messages buried within the storyline, which are the true story behind the story. This allows us to start seeing our own lives as being filled with patterns, and maybe even the same ones the author himself has brought out in his writing. In this way, things which may have previously been camouflaged to us become crystal clear and brought into plain view. We can then see for the first time what truths have been staring us in the face our whole lives; students later call these special moments “growing up.” These essays support the main idea that, “When we see the patterns of information like dots connected together to reveal the true picture of our journey in life, the ideas we have encountered begin to make sense for the first time in our lives.”

7. Presentation and Context (This includes all 6 of the previous traits at once.) READ THIS!

In presentation and context essays, the writer brings all of the 6 previous concepts of the 6 + 1 Expanded Traits together in a singular way to focus on just one piece of literature or event in his or her life. Like looking at all the facets of a diamond at the same time, this deep form of literary analysis allows the writer to truly understand a piece of literature in a very knowing way. Ultimately, we want to be able to form an informed opinion about things in our lives, but we often lack the skills to do more than hazard a wild guess. Writing a presentation and context essay tackles the literature or event from all angles and all sides: morning, noon, and night; east side and west side; old school and new school; intergalactic to small town; dead or alive; and everything in between. Students can begin to see their entire lives as a single presentation, an opportunity to be real, whole, alive, and healthy because they accept themselves for who they are. These essays support the main idea that, “When a writer gets finished writing a presentation essay, he knows more of what he is talking about and has really done the work it takes to claim to have an aware opinion about the subject.”

Note: This process, from this writer’s point of view, is meant to bring out from readers an understanding of themselves as human beings. One of the faults of our culture is the grandiose and exaggerated emphasis that is placed on our needing to be bigger than life, and no one want to be just plain old human beings any more. We have convinced our children that they have to be huge and towering, untouchable and unrealistic. They miss their childhoods doing adult things; they dress like adults, and they get into adult trouble more and more. We have left the realm of accountability and entered the realm of accumulation. We are who we appear to be, so we have to appear to be unique, powerful, perfect, and shocking. Students know all about $200 tennis shoes and $400,000 cars, but they can’t seem to scrape together enough money to pay rent, even though they never miss a party. This mindset is all a part of not being able to get the big picture and understand how it is that it’s the daily details that make up our survival. Parents and students must also do a better job at preparing our kids to take on the evermore complex world in front of us all. It well may be that the pieces of literature used as examples here are not choices that others would make, fine. It may well be that these are not the best categories to use to raise our children’s consciousness, okay by me. But, if not this, then use something, because what we have been using is not working for the most part, and American children are having a hard time thinking their way out of a paper bag: the one the vices, the fast food, the isolating cell phones, the host of lost moments to be quite and real, and the video games come in. Do something rather than nothing; it’s up to you.

Final Hint (on how to write these papers): Almost all literature is on the INTERNET!

I. Look at the larger type above...these are ways to write the main idea for each paper.
Define the words to be used as they are used in the notes. Stop copying out of the
dictionary. Understand the words being used before using them. Do NOT guess.
Read the notes, ask questions, get a clue, then have an opinion.
A. This is only a literary main idea support and not to be used as the title of the essay!
B. Apply the main idea to yourself.
C. Apply the main idea to society.
D. Pick out an area where the main idea is well-illustrated and explain it.
II. Now let's look back and see if we learned anything by studying this topic.

Why learn this stuff in the first place? If you do not understand how the world is organized, you will have to be told what to do next by people who do. It is up to you to learn how to communicate and get your needs met; if you fail to do this, you have no one to blame but yourself. If you do figure out that those who love you and want the best for you are hoping that you learn to think for yourself so that you are not enslaved by your own fears and ignorance, don't think that that makes you better than everyone else; that's just one more layer on the cake.

III. Here's what to do:
A. Make a notebook to put your stuff in, and don't lose it!
B. Write a journal every day to document your daily living and learning.
C. Finish the assigned computer work on PLATO.
D. Write the assigned 9 essays for each class; learn how to think and evaluate.
IV. Graduate: That alone will only put you on the road to Success; now, walk towards it.