Exemplification

After four more vocabulary words, we began our next mode of discourse: exemplification, or more simply put as using specific examples to clarify an idea or topic.

To break this down into digestible components, we used the broad topic of "student" as our introductory sample.

 First, brainstorm all related words, ideas, objects, people, feelings, or anything that pops in your head regarding the topic. You do not want to limit your possible examples, so do not edit your ideas.

Second, select a theme or (better yet) a working thesis statement that could could cover several, specific examples. For example, we picked "stress" as an overall theme for students.

Third, select the relevant examples from your brainstorm and group like examples together. For instance, we removed the chaff not related to stress and then combined remaining examples into school-related stress, outside of school stress, and results of stress.

Fourth, select the range, or the order you would like your exemplification to follow. This may be chronological, spatial, least to most important, most to least, cause and effect, or any other way to keep your exemplification organized. In class, we chose cause and effect by ordering school, outside, and results.

Fifth, specify each examples. During our class practice, we went from having "a lot of homework" to exemplifying the hours, the practices, and the steps involved for PreCalc; we went from having "to do everything" to exemplifying counter service, customer service, drive-thru service and food preparation while working at McDonalds; we went from "everything in the past and present" to exemplifying scholarship, GPA and ACT statistics, and college major selection.

To further specificity, we read "Be Specific," an essay that calls upon all writers (that would be you) to bring in specific names of flowers, people, and places to help the reader better understand your exemplification.

And, we are not finished yet! To practice all of this exemplification, you created a class brainstorm on the board - the topic of "evil" haunting all of your examples. With all of these samples, we created a class thesis statement to define evil and help tie together our specific examples. Then, each of you selected one example of evil.

Lots to do outside of class tonight...

1. The final draft of the narrative essay is due by 2:45 p.m. on Wednesday. Please staple the scoring guide to the final draft.
2. On your selected evil example, jot down the reasons why this person/thing/entity/idea is evil. You will need to include at least one direct quote from a website or source. Do not forget to write down your website and address for citations purposes. (For this assignment, you may use .com and even Wikipedia for your sources.)
3. Complete the second grammar review. We will go over this in class tomorrow.