2015 Comments on Night Essays
First, let’s take a look at all the scaffolding we did:
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Moshe the Beadle
o Notes on characterization: Physical, Social, Psychological
o Paragraphs
o Discussion of Wiesel’s Purpose in including Moshe
o How to write the introduction
o How to write the conclusion
o Moshe the Beadle essay
 My exemplar essay on Moshe
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Google classroom shared Doc for quotes:
o Characterization of Elie
o Symbols of “fire,” and “night”
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How to use quotes (cut and paste from lesson plans below):
o A well-developed quote in a longer work requires:
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Background/Context
Quote (i.e. ““Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven
times cursed and seven times sealed....Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and
turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never,” (pg. 30). )
I/E (as necessary)
Comm (tie it back to your topic sentence, which ties back to your thesis)
You may need commentary for each quote, or you may want to save the commentary for use as a series of concluding
sentences to close the paragraph.
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I then had you look over your Moshe the Beadle essays and fix any problems.
o Then we used the rubric for the Night essays to score the Moshe essays.
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We watched the Oprah interview with Wiesel, and read the speech he gave at the trial for Klaus Barbie.
o From these, we highlighted the speech and took notes all with an eye to how these might
illuminate Wiesel’s PURPOSE in writing the novel Night.
o We did a think-pair-share discussion on this.
o We wrote an in-class essay on Wiesel’s PURPOSE in writing the novel Night.
 With emphasis on well-developed quotes, the basic formula was reiterated:
 Background/Context
 Q
 I/E
 Comm
o I put 13 of the best purpose essays online for you to check out.
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I provided you with 11 exemplar essays online, most of which had exhaustive annotation and remarks.
o I had you do an essay study and think how you could use this info to improve your own essays.
o You were provided with both rubrics for the essay:
 Characterization
 Symbols
o I printed out and gave you an 1101-word document providing outlines, commentary, and
examples of use of quotes to support you in your essay writing.
Now: on to the essays I received:
Form, the single most glaring problem:
Introduction MUST have a strong statement of purpose (thesis statement).
Each body paragraph MUST have an organizing statement (topic sentence).
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Topic sentences must be supported with QUOTES
o Quotes must be DEVELOPED (DEV)
 In many, many cases there was not adequate CONTEXT/BACKGROUND in order for the
quote to work.
 Quotes need some kind of explanation/interpretation (I/E)
 The final step in DEV a Q is to comment (COMM) on it: talk about it. Explain/show HOW
this packet of info (Context, Quote, I/E, and now COMM) works to SUPPORT your Topic
Sentence which in turn SUPPORTS your Thesis Statement.
Each body paragraph MUST have a closing statement that sums up/points back to the thesis statement
(concluding sentence).
A couple of ways to go:
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Mini paragraphs with one quote well developed.
o This worked best, overall.
Longer, more elaborate paragraphs which establish larger points: the characterization of Elie in the
beginning/Elie in the end, Showing of Elie’s loss of faith, etc.
Basic Sentence structure, syntax, grammar and spelling.
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At this level, you should be varying sentence length, using fragments for emphasis, etc.
Most of you failed to italicize Night, didn’t capitalize properly, etc.
Word choice and use of adverbs revealed lazy, sloppy thought and writing.
o Hint: if the adverb has “ly” you can almost certainly get rid of it and choose and stronger verb.
Nazis is not the same as Nazi’s.
Egregious errors:
A word on signs of laziness:
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Many of you attached the wrong rubric to your essay.
Many of you turned in essays on the characterization of Elie that were considerably shorter than
o My document on how to write the essay,
o The Moshe the Beadle essay.
Plagiarism: Rosie Ruiz: The Boston Marathon Cheat
o Yeah, you might get away with it.
o That’s on YOU. In my mind, no matter how good/smart/successful you are, you will not be an
“honors” student.
 “You cannot save honor with a lie.”
 (37:30ish)
My most used comments:
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What’s the point? To what purpose?
Author? Purpose?
Context?
Losing focus (on purpose)
I/E?
Comm?
Q for support?
I’m lost, what’s the point?
Confusing.
Feels like a random addition.
There’s no sense of organization to this:
o You need a strong thesis statement to guide the essay, then
o Paragraphs with topic sentences that support your thesis statement,
o And each paragraph needs to FULLY DEV carefully selected Qs.
Points on purpose:
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Witness/Testimony/Fight Silence + Justice
Some of you used the passive which obliterates the main point:
o “One of the ways Elie is described…”
 NO. Try: “The author Wiesel establishes Elie’s faith early in the text so that….”
o The author, Wiesel, describes Elie…
 See the difference?
 The MAIN point of this essay is “how the author achieves his purpose in writing the
essay.”
Need to relate this to us TODAY in the here and now in your conclusion
o Establish relevance.
o A call to action is a nice way to conclude…