English Question

Now it’s time to put your outline together. You’ve learned about the organization of the essay, topics, and how to format your body paragraphs. 

Now that you have had a chance to understand through stories and explanations, you will be deciding on your most important responsibilities, and writing an essay on this topic.

You will list your current responsibilities for family, work, and self and provide an explanation on what your duties would include and opinions on those duties. Your classes at Graduation Alliance can fall under the “work” or “self” category. Also remember that if you are a “stay-at-home” parent your “work” and “family” category will probably overlap a little. Your “work” would also be caring for your children.

Step 1:  Make a copy of this Google Doc or download the Microsoft Word Doc. You will submit your outline in this format below, not in an essay format yet.

Step 2:  Please follow the outline, making sure each part is complete in order to receive full points. At this point in the writing process, you can leave the tags “concrete details, commentary” etc. We will delete these tags in the rough draft and final draft

Now that you understand how to organize your entire essay, you will begin to write your body paragraphs. Do you remember the topics from the previous lesson? Your topics will be your three major responsibilities: family, work, and personal. Look at the following two example paragraphs for family responsibilities. Notice the format, and how the paragraph is organized into concrete details and commentary. The concrete details are the actual duties and the commentary includes your opinions on those responsibilities and any struggles or achievements you have noticed. Keep in mind that if you are not a parent of a household, you still have responsibilities towards your family. Perhaps you care for your siblings, complete chores at home, or even just attend family gatherings like dinner, church, or movie night.

Please view these two examples to see how to write your body paragraphs.

(Family Responsibilities)

Topic sentence: My family responsibilities are challenging.

Concrete detail (Family responsibilities): It includes caring for my two year old daughter financially, emotionally, and physically.  

Commentary (opinion on responsibility): This responsibility is the most challenging and also the most fulfilling. It seems some days that a mother’s work is never ending and there is always more I could be doing to serve my family, but it also gives me the most joy.

Commentary (opinion on responsibility): Seeing my daughter learn new skills that I taught her and watching her grow makes everything worth it.

Concrete Detail (family responsibilities): Another one of my family responsibilities is caring for my grandmother.

Commentary (opinion on responsibility): I love caring for my grandmother, but it can be emotionally draining as her health is failing.

Commentary (opinion on responsibility): I want to spend as much time as I possibly can, but it has been hard to balance all of my other responsibilities.

Concluding Sentence: My family responsibilities are challenging, but rewarding.