The Giver Essay Pointers

Summary:
You just tell what happened. More like an elementary book-report type of thing.

Essay:
You prove, through your own original ideas, a THESIS statement, using examples from the text.

Right now your THESIS (the main idea of your essay) needs to be telling me WHAT YOU THINK THE THEME IS.

Theme:
The author’s main idea, message, or the “moral of the story.”

The theme IS NOT . . .
A summary of what happened. We already know WHAT HAPPENED. We all read the book together in class. I have taught it fourteen thousand times. If you give me four pages of WHAT HAPPENED, I will pull my hair out.

Possible themes for THE GIVER:
•Family and human relationships are important.
•One person can make a difference.
•Unless we know our past, we cannot plan our future.
•True wisdom comes from experiencing both emotional and physical pain.
•Without the hard times, we won’t appreciate the good times.
•Diversity is important. If everyone and everything was the same, life would be boring and meaningless.
•Giving people choices is important. Without choices, we become like robots.
•You should have a say in how you live your life.
•You don’t truly live until you give of yourself.
•We can learn so much from our elders.
•Giving love to others is more important than anything else.
•Although life is messy, we learn from our mistakes and should be allowed to make them from time to time.

By the way, you SHOULD feel frustrated and slightly pushed beyond your boundaries right now. That’s what we call LEARNING.

General Essay Reminders:
•First of all, this is worth 50 points. Make it good.
•Avoid writing “I believe that . . .” or “I think that . . .” I know that your essay is full of your beliefs and thoughts. Duh! It has your name on it. Whose thoughts and beliefs WOULD they be? Unless, of course, you’re plagiarizing, which none of you are doing right now, because you have no Internet access or student examples at the moment.
•Your textual evidence needs to SUPPORT YOUR THESIS.
•Place all textual evidence that you copy directly from the text in QUOTATION MARKS like this:
“He knew that in the danger of his escape he must be absolutely silent; but with his heart and mind, he called back and hoped that with his capacity for hearing-beyond, The Giver would know that Jonas had said goodbye” (153).
•Did you see how I made the page number bold? You DO NOT have to BOLD page numbers in your essay. You DO have to INCLUDE the page numbers for your textual evidence. Put the page number in PARENTHESES AFTER the quotation marks, but before the final punctuation.
•Please do not start your essay like this: “Hi! My name is Joe, and I’m here to tell you all about The Giver!”
•Please do not end your essay like this: “Well, that’s what I thought about the book. I hope you liked my essay. The end.”
•Again, SUMMARY does not equal RESPONSE TO LITERATURE. When you summarize you just tell what happened (like an elementary school book report). When you write a response to literature, you are writing about a specific feature of the text, such as the theme, and proving what your ideas are about it.

Now fly, fly, fly away, little birdies . . . write, write, write.