Wild Child Annotations

Literature and Education Resources for the Wild at Heart

Writing Corner

  • Analyze This: Body Paragraphs and Analysis

    The more essays one writes, the more one is able to bend the rules. In its purest form, however, a body paragraph follows a fairly straightforward format. Welcome to this classic version: Introductory sentence(s), Evidence, Thesis tie-in, Analysis. IETA, if you will. Rolls right off the tongue. Read more

  • INCORPORATING LITERARY CRITICISM

    So you’ve mastered the five paragraph essay, and perhaps even longer, more fluid formats. It’s time to try your hand at incorporating other experts’ ideas about the text, and even place your ideas on equal footing with theirs. Hands and feet aside . . . enter THE LITERARY CRITICISM ESSAY! Read more

  • Ten CREATIVE WRITING PROMPTS

    One of my favorite teaching experiences was hosting a weekly Creative Writing Club. Maybe you are lucky enough to be in this same position. Maybe you’re looking for prompts for yourself, or for a young aspiring writer, or for a group. Maybe… Read more

  • To Write a Thesis

    There is no good essay without a good thesis, which is both the good news and the bad news. It is the foundation upon which every other sentence in the essay rests upon. Moreover, it is the soul of the essay. If the reader is lucky, it may even be a tiny little glimpse into… Read more

  • How to Write a Five Paragraph Essay

    By now you know how much I love the student essay. But how to go about teaching or writing one? I’m so glad you asked! Traditionally, the first essay a student learns how to write is the five paragraph essay. From there, he or she can learn to write a longer essay by… Read more

  • In Praise of the Essay

    I am very passionate about the essay writing process being an amazing, if not critical, way to engage with the big questions in a good book. Putting structure to thought is to make order of the jumbled up ideas in our own brain, and that is the point (one of the points) of an English… Read more