Sample Explanatory Essay (Cont.)
Have volunteers finish reading the paragraphs in the sample essay. Then lead a discussion of it, using prompts like the following:
- Why is this topic so interesting? (It combines contrasting things: great Mohawk warriors with industrial-age technology, people known for living with nature with people packed into dense urban environments. The model also focuses on a little-known and fascinating piece of U.S. history.)
- What are the main points of the essay, and how do they support the focus? (Mohawk men had to prove themselves, the courage and agility required by fur trapping made Mohawks great at steel working, Mohawks built the skyscrapers of the turn of the 1900's; these main points explain a little-known part of American history.)
- What details in this essay were most surprising to you?
- How do surprising details keep you engaged? (You naturally want to find things out; curiosity drives the reading process.)
Ask students what surprising facts they know about life in your city, your state, or your nation. Get the ball rolling by sharing one of your own surprising facts.
(For example, before movies, people used to line up to look at panorama paintings that were 40 feet tall and 500 feet wide and displayed in round barns across the nation. A company in Wisconsin employed classically trained German artists to work in large teams to paint scenes from the Civil War and the Bible, which would be displayed for months in a city, drawing large crowds. After the people stopped coming, the canvas would be rolled up on a 40-foot-long spool and sent to another city with a round barn to be displayed. A portion of one such painting remains in Gettysburg to commemorate the battle there.)
Show your students how truth really is stranger—and more interesting—than fiction.
Let your discussion guide students to possible topics for their own explanatory essays.
