Writing Conclusion Help

[Plagefille]

My DD has become a very good writer but she is struggling with writing conclusions to her essays. One aspect she really struggles with is restating her thesis. This area is also a weakness of mine, so I am not a ton of help. 

What curriculum or resources should you suggest?

[royspeed]

Is she writing straight literary-analysis-type essays for an English class?

(Different types of essays call for different approaches for the conclusion.)

—Roy Speed

[Plagefille]

Yes, literary analysis is our main focus this year. But we do seem to be bad at all kinds of conclusions.

[royspeed]

Okay, good.

I can upload a couple of essays I've used in the past to model this sort of essay — they both have decent conclusions.

First, two warnings:

• To appreciate how each conclusion works, your daughter must read each essay in its entirety. Then she must:
  1) read the introduction again;
  2) read the conclusion again.
• It really helps if she's read the works under discussion (Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice).

Things for her to notice:

• Each introductory paragraph discusses both:
  1) the larger meaning of the work — e.g., "Jane Eyre is about strength of character...";
  2) the thesis of the essay — e.g., "Brontë uses Jane to portray how the pain of alienation can evolve into inner strength..."
• Each conclusion circles back to the introduction, referring to both the thesis and the larger meaning, e.g., in the essay on Jane Eyre, just notice how many times in her conclusion the student refers to the central ideas of strength and alienation.

One final thing — something you and she may find useful for other types of essays: please see the attachment "ENDING YOUR ESSAY - Pages from Logical Communication.pdf."

Hope this helps, Plagefille.

—Roy Speed

Pride and Prejudice - The Indispensable Foil.pdf Jane Eyre - From Alienation to Controlling Her Destiny.pdf ENDING YOUR ESSAY - Pages from Logical Communication.pdf

[Farrar]

I do think intros and conclusions can be the trickiest parts of a paper. Getting kids to understand how to make a hook and introduce the book or topic without either being super pointlessly broad (aka, "Literature is about life." Or even worse, things like, "Readers have had many opinions about this book.") is tricky. I find that a lot of kids forget to tell us what they're even discussing in the introduction. I can't tell you how many  papers I've read where the student forgets to mention  what book or historical period they're discussing. And then in the conclusion, figuring out how to take it to a sort of "greater meaning" or connect it with other works without introducing too many new ideas is really tricky as well.

I think the above advice is good. How is she at just rephrasing any given sentence or paragraph? If she's really stuck, can you start with that skill and have her rephrase a lot of statements that aren't her own thesis statements?

Have you ever had her read professional quality essays? I think the Norton Sampler is a good source for essays to discuss that both keep and break the mold. While it's harder to pinpoint the traditional five paragraph format that a lot of students are still using in school in a professional essay, most published and award winning essayists have really nailed the introduction and conclusion in a way that is worth seeing for students so they can break beyond the canned writing of, "So, as you can see, my thesis statement is true because of reasons a, b, and c."

[Plagefille]

Thank you for your time and advice. And the linked papers. I think this will all help. Definitely we will spend some time just rephrasing. That is a weakness she has. I really didn't do a good job with the whole narration and whatnot through the years.... 

[royspeed]

Plagefille:

Happy to help. — Feel free to contact me any time via our website.

Best.

—Roy Speed