Writeon's Blog

A Sacramento City School Blog

Tuesday’s Lesson: Orienting the Reader

March7

Greetings! I’m writing from my hotel room in San Francisco, and I’m so pleased to see all of the great ideas and questions you have posed! Look for my reply to your comments.

Today our focus is on the introduction and specifically the idea of “orienting the reader,” which means telling the reader what you hope to accomplish with your essay. In the United States, we often write objectively, yet internationally it is more common to write (at least for part of the essay) from the first person point of view. We are writing to an international reader, so let’s adhere to international standards.

Introduction Paragraph:

1. Identify the author, novel, and central conflict. Be sure to italicize the novel’s title.

2. Identify the central question your essay hopes to answer.

3. Explain the approach you will take in your essay and why you believe that this approach will best satisfy your central question.

4. Share a brief or abbreviated answer to your central question. (This is your thesis statement!) If you don’t have your thesis statement at this time, it’s okay. You can return later and insert it here in your introduction.

 

Body Paragraphs:

1. Provide the answer to one of your supporting questions (you worked on these yesterday)

2. Develop support of your interpretation with specific references to the text. Remember to write with your book open and cite examples. Provide the context (who, what, when, where, why) PRIOR to your concrete detail. You need to guide the reader to your example.

3. Comment on your example (1-2 sentences)

4. Comment on Murakami’s choices (1-2 sentences)

5. Repeat steps 2-4 as necessary. You should have a balance of context, concrete detail, commentary, and author commentary in your essay.

Exemplary Essay

If you haven’t already, I strongly encourage you to read Nick Peters’ essay, which scored a perfect score from the IB examiner. You’ll have a good sense of what you’ll need to to do. Keep your voice academic and sustain your interpretation.

I’m so glad to know that you having success with starting your essays! What a relief!

Kind Regards,

Mr. Coey

by posted under IB English, Writing | 2 Comments »    
2 Comments to

“Tuesday’s Lesson: Orienting the Reader”

  1. March 8th, 2016 at 2:52 pm       Jennifer Yang Says:

    Haruki Marukami is a Japanese author. His works deals with surrealism, magical realism and mystery. In his award winning work ,The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Toru, the protagonist, is on a journey to deduce the disappearance of his wife, Kumiko. The central question that my essay hopes to answer is… Does Toru fulfills the role of a hero? The approach I take in order to answer my central question is by listing the qualities that Toru have and explaining why Murakami made the choices to let Toru have these qualities. Although Toru is deemed dull and weak, Murakami makes Toru fulfills the role of a hero by making us empathize and sympathize with him.


  2. March 8th, 2016 at 9:54 am       Langlee Vang Says:

    In The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Murakami wrote about a Man who live in a world where it express itself through Objects, and magical realism. Murakami is a writer who love twist and turn, so he put it in a book. I think he love westerner book and a little of supernatural, so he incorporate it into the Wind-Up Bird. He brought in the past so it reflect in the future, and that one of the twist, the turn is Toru, one of his character in The Wind Up Bird.
    One of my question stated, Why did Kamiko left Toru? and I think it’s because of the sex life but she did it on the very first page of the book, but it just don’t say it, you can tell through the way how she talk and been acting. Another question I have is why did the cat came back? I’ve haven’t read to book 3 but I know book 3 is when Kamiko already left Toru, so what does that cat real symbolize? I thought it symbol Kamiko and Toru relationship, but when they both left each other, the Cat came back.




Skip to toolbar