000 12/05/2025 Explanatory Essay Writing Basics

Poll

What is an Explanatory Essay?

• A recipe—showing you exactly how to make something step-by-step

• A mystery box—you never know what you're going to get inside

• A restaurant menu—trying to convince you to order one thing

• A fortune cookie—giving you vague advice about your future

Multiple Choice

What is the primary purpose of an explanatory essay?

• To persuade readers to agree with the writer's opinion

• To inform or explain a complex idea objectively

• To entertain readers with creative storytelling

• To complain about things that annoy the writer

Multiple Choice

Why is "Places are important to people" considered a WEAK thesis?

• It's too obvious and doesn't explain how or why places matter

• It uses informal language that isn't academic enough

• It doesn't mention any of the three authors we studied

• It's written in Comic Sans font instead of Times New Roman

Multiple Choice

When organizing evidence, you should group it by:

• Theme, connecting ideas from all three authors together

• Author, with one paragraph for O'Keeffe, Twain, and Hurston

• Chronological order, from oldest to newest historical events

• Alphabetical order, because that's how dictionaries do it

Multiple Choice

What do O'Keeffe, Twain, and Hurston have in common regarding place?

• All three moved to New York City to pursue their careers

• They all wrote about places that provided freedom to develop authentic identity

• They all preferred urban settings over rural natural environments

• They all hated traveling and only wrote about their hometowns

Multiple Choice

If something is "formative," it means it:

• Shapes who you become or influences your development

• Follows a strict format that cannot be changed

• Happened in the past and no longer matters today

• Belongs on a form you fill out at the doctor's office

Multiple Choice

In the body paragraphs of your essay, you should:

• Include evidence from ALL authors and explain how it proves your thesis

• Restate your thesis sentence in every single paragraph

• Focus on one author per paragraph without connecting them

• Write about your personal life story and ignore the texts

Multiple Choice

Analyze this scenario: A student writes an essay with a strong thesis and good evidence, but doesn't explain HOW the evidence proves the thesis. Why is this a problem?

• Readers won't understand the connection between evidence and the main argument

• The essay will be too short to meet the required length

Open Ended

Write your FINAL thesis statement below. Make sure it directly answers: How are we shaped by the places we experience?