World History – Honors

Spring – 2014

Five Paragraph Essay:

Connecting Current Events with Historical Events

Objectives: After completing this project you will be able to understand how the events of today relate to the historical events that we have studied in class. History is more than names, dates and places. Students must understand the relevance of how our world has been shaped, and how that affects our lives today – and in the future. You will also be able to write a standard five paragraph essay, organizing your thoughts logically and writing them clearly and concisely.

Requirements:

Type in a 12 point font, using either arial, times new roman or universal.

Approximately twotype-written pages, plus title, outline and bibliography pages.

Give an oral presentation of your paper to the class. (Approximately 2 minutes.) Speak extemporaneously, either from memory or using 3x5 note cards. Do not read the paper. Simply explain what you wrote about, its significance as an historical event and why it’s important to you.

Methodology:

Select an important incident or person from current events. Find an analogous event from history and explain the connections between the two. For example, some politicians want to build a wall between our country and Mexico. This may remind us of the Great Wall of China, which was built as a barricade against Mongolian attacks. You could write an essay stating that a wall around our southern border would succeed (or fail) in protecting our country the way the Great Wall protected China.

Grading: (This is a Formal assignment)

Title, thesis statement and outline – 20 points

First draft – 30 points

Final draft – 40 points

Oral presentation – 10 points

Timeline and Due Dates:

March 19 – Introduce essay and topic selection

March 21 – Proposed title, thesis statement and outline due.

March 21 thru March 30 (Sunday)– Revise your title, thesis statement and outline, incorporating the teacher’s notes.

March 31–Finalized title, thesis statement and outline due.

April 11– First draft due. (Include a bibliography, listing your sources.)

Week of April 21 – Revise your paper, incorporating the teacher’s notes.

April 25 – Final draft due.

May 2– Oral Presentation due.

Overview of the Five Paragraph Essay

As you would expect, to complete this project successfully, you must write an essay that is five paragraphs long. It will consist of the following:

  1. Introductory Paragraph
  2. Introductory Statement to engage your audience
  3. Thesis Statement – the final sentence of the introductory paragraph
  4. First Body Paragraph
  5. Topic Sentence
  6. Supporting Detail
  7. Supporting Detail
  8. Supporting Detail
  9. Second Body Paragraph
  10. Topic Sentence
  11. Supporting Detail
  12. Supporting Detail
  13. Supporting Detail
  14. Third Body Paragraph
  15. Topic Sentence
  16. Supporting Detail
  17. Supporting Detail
  18. Supporting Detail
  19. Concluding Paragraph
  20. Restatement of Thesis
  21. Summarize the previous points from the three body paragraphs
  22. Conclusion

The supporting detail for the three body paragraphs will not always have exactly three items as suggested above. You may have more or less supporting details, as needed.

Whenever you write, be sure to include all necessary facts to clarify and support your thesis. However, always write succinctly, without any extraneous verbiage.

Revised: 9/28/2018