Outline of unified Essay

Part 3 Unified Essay Outline

I. Introduction
A. Controlling/main Idea
B. Background information (if possible)
C. Thesis statement
D. Name of passage one and passage two
E. Name of the authors of passages

II. Body Paragraph 1
A. Topic sentence ( contrast of passage one)

1.Supporting details
• Name and dates
• Direct Quotes
• Literary elements
  1. Characteristics
  2. Point of view
  3. Tone

III. Body Paragraph 2
A. Topic sentence (contrast passage two)

1. Supporting details
• Names and dates
• Direct Quotes
• Literary elements (Same as above)

IV. Body Paragraph 3
A. Topic sentence (compare passage one and two)

1. Supporting details
• Direct Quotes
  2. Literary elements (same as above)

V. Conclusion
A. Restate the thesis
B. Summarize what you have wrote without giving new ideas.

ELA Essay Part A

Your Task:
After you have read the passages and answered the multiple-choice question write a unified essay about the power of reading as revealed in the passages. In your essay, use ideas from both passages to establish a controlling idea about the power of reading. Using evidence from each passage, develop your controlling ideal and show how the author uses specific literary elements or techniques to convey that idea.

"Knowledge is power". This quote means that the more you know the more power you have of yourself and your surroundings. Books hold a great deal of knowledge. In books you can find many new ideas and things not known to you. Both passages, The Reader by Richard Wilbur and passage II by Itala Coluino, show just how books can make people gain knowledge.

The Reader is a poem, which shows how rereading a book can make someone wiser. In The Reader it says that the woman who reread the stories she liked as a child "meet them (the characters in the story) this time with a wiser eye." When she read the stories again she understood more of the propose of the character. Also when she reread the stories she read them with anticipation even if she knew that fate of the story.

Passage II is a short story that talks about how people that are closed minded open their minds to new ideas by reading books. In this passage the soldiers were sent to censor books. However they became so amused with what they were reading that the stopped reporting the books and began to just read them. The soldiers opened their minds to new ideas and did not censor the books that would contradict the "military prestige." As a result of this the soldiers were pensioned off for health reasons. However the soldiers kept learning new ideas by going to the library.

Both passages show how people can learn from books and the story they read. They see that the stories hold their own knowledge in which they can learn from. Their minds become open to many new things. They also can see things in different perspective if they reread the stories. They become wiser with what they learn from the stories.

Reading can bring knowledge to those who read. They learn new things and can also learn about themselves through the stories. They become open-minded to the ideas of other people. The passages show how people can come to accept and learn from the stories that books hold.

Effect of War on an individual

The Situation:
Your English class is studying autobiographical text of men who have served in war. For your project, you have decided to write a report about the effects that war have upon the individual. In preparation for writing your report, listen to an account by Tim O’Brien. Then use relevant information from the account to write your report.


War is a difficult situation to go through. It has different effects on those that are in the war. In Ambush by Tim O'Brien, the narrator had a life changing experience of which he would never be able to forget. He killed a young man during the war without thinking about it before killing the young man. He would live his life with regret, shame and a guilty conscience.

The narrator's nine year old daughter had asked him if he has ever killed someone. "You keep writing these war stories... so I guess you must have killed somebody." He was so ashamed of killing the young man that he told her that he didn't. However, he did say "someday I hope she'll ask again... I want to tell her exactly what happened what I remember happening and then I want to say to her that as a little girl she was right."He wanted to tell her the truth, but only when she was old enough to understand what happened.

As an effect of the war the narrator would write war stories. He said he would write them as a way of telling his daughter that she was right. He would write then as a way of remembering what happened the day that he killed the young man. His guilty conscience would make him remember what happened to him. As a result of his guilty conscience he would write the stories to have an ended that he would have preferred to have had himself.

The narrator had regretted killing the young man. He would feel guilty even when Kiowa told him that that it was a “good kill.” Kiowa told the narrator that the young man would have killed him, or the young man would have gotten killed later on. He would see the young man in his thoughts.. He says “I’ll look up and see the young man coming out of the morning fog and I’ll watch him walk towards me… he’ll walk within a few yards of me and suddenly smile at some secret thought and thin continue up the trail… up in to the fog.” In his thoughts he picture the events of what happened in the way he wished it would have happened. He regretted killing the young man and when he would see him in his thoughts he would see that the young man was alive.

The narrator’s life changed when he killed the young man. He was effected and lived with regret, shame, and a guilty conscience. He would see the man, and write about his experience. War comes with a great deal of effects. War effect vary from people to people. How much of an effect a war has on an individual depends on the mentality that individual has to handle what would or has happened to them.