Romeo and Juliet
Essay structure and planning
Something to think about
In pairs, discuss what
you find to be the
most difficult part of
writing an essay
Did you discuss any of these?
●
●
●
●
●
●
Clear and focused introduction
Remembering specific quotes
Focused word level analysis
Use of clear and engaging topic sentences
Incorporating personal interpretation
Making reference to the writer’s craft
Elements of an essay
● Introduction - establishing your thesis
statement
● 3-4 focused PEA paragraphs with clear topic
sentences
● A well-rounded conclusion
What should an introduction consist
of?
Task:
In pairs, spend one minute to type out the most
important points when producing an
introduction.
One of you come up to the board and write out
your ‘key ingredients’
What are your thoughts on this as an
introduction?
How does Juliet develop as a character during the
play?
In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet’s attitude and personality
develops during the course of the play. Initially she starts
off as a conservative, dutiful daughter of Lord Capulet. By
the final scenes she is forced to become even more
independent. In between these points she begins to mature
and rebel against her family and she meets and marries
Romeo.
Challenge
On your Google Doc, you have two introductions.
Annotate the introductions with your notes and
consider WWW (What Went Well) and TFI
(Target for Improvement)
Improving your technique - connectives
Making your sentences more vibrant will help develop the fluency of your
writing. Aim to use more connectives (well, technically they’re called
subordinate conjunctions we’ll let that slide!). Try employing some of these
techniques into your writing:
after
although
because
even though
if
provided that
rather than
since
so that
than
until
unless
whenever
wherever
whether
Improving your technique - signposting
In the context of essays, signposting means using words to tell your reader
about the content of your essay, rather than just telling them the content itself.
This is done to help the reader understand as clearly as possible. Here are
some (real) examples:
Having
established….
In addition to...
Another important
issue to be
considered...
It may be argued
that...
In order for the
reader to
experience...
We can see that...
As well as...
Moreover...
By way of
contrast...
In essence...
The author
immediately
In summation...
Challenge
Choose one of the questions from the earlier Google Doc
task and produce an introduction and opening paragraph.
● Establish your thesis
● Signpost your paragraph and embed your example
quotes
● Share your response with a partner and comment on it.