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Using the information you gathered during the pre-reading observations and the fact-finding stage, your task here is to further examine the surface structure of the text and explore the elements that make the essay an exposition or an argument.
Task 1. Ask Yourself. At this point, can you determine the format of the sample essay? Review the tasks you completed in the Introducción al ensayo and use them to determine your answer. Write your answer here, then come back and check it when you have finished this section.
Task 1. Decode Verbs.
Task 2. Transfer and Decode Pronouns.
Task 3. Compare.
Task 4. Decode Sentences.
Note: This strategy is applicable when the essay is un ensayo poético, un ensayo dramático, or un ensayo narrativo. If that is the case, complete the following tasks.
Task 1. Create Word Wheel.
Task 2. Compare and Contrast.
Study Hint: Recognizing Essays
In order to understand the essay as a literary form, it is important to be able to recognize one when you see or hear it, and to be able to identify the literary devices that the essayist used to accomplish his/her goal. Designate a block of time during which you will analyze everything verbal and written you encounter for its expository or argumentative devices. Drawing on what you have learned so far, determine what you will attend to before you begin your analysis, including the rhetorical clues you will look for. Report your most interesting findings to your study group and/or the rest of your class. You might be surprised at how often in our daily lives we are, knowingly and unknowingly, verbally or nonverbally, brought into the essayist's "dialogue" about issues of the world around us.
Task 1. Identify Topic Sentence.
Task 2. Delete Information. Skim your working copy, segment by segment, and draw a line through redundant information or information that is not relevant to the focus and purpose of the essay.
Task 3. Generalize.
Task 4. Summarize.
Task 5. Check Yourself.
Task 1. Identify Thematic Elements.
Task 2. Complete Thematic Structure.