Opinion essay” Plan: Opinion essay

Theme: Opinion essay”
Plan:

1. 
   Opinion essay
   
2. 
   Sample essays
   
3. 
   Opinion Essay Introduction
   

When talking about academic writing, essay writing cannot be left out of the loop. It’s one of the most common types of writing exercises for university admissions, international exams, etc. As promised in our earlier article, today we’ll be talking about an opinion essay.
So, we’ll look at;

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  The structure of writing an “Opinion essay”
  
• 
  Sample essays
  
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  Useful language to use in the essays
  
• 
  Tips
  

An opinion essay is there to show your viewpoint on a particular topic, to prove your ideas. The structure is the following:

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  Paragraph 1_Introduction – a good introduction starts with the thesis statement (what the essay is going to be about), it should clearly state your opinion instead of leaving your readers in the dark. It should also include 3 reasons to back your viewpoint and highlight why you think the statement of the essay is true/false.Read more in this article.
  
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  Paragraph 2,3,4_Body – this is where you expand on the reasons you had mentioned in the introduction, provide reasons and examples to support them by giving as many valid details and facts as possible. Each paragraph matches 1 reason (3 reasons = 3 body paragraphs)
  
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  Paragraph 5_Conclusion – here you summarize your argument by restating the reasons mentioned in the essay. You can end the essay by a “call for action” phrase challenging the readers to take some action and reconsider their opinion if they differ from yours. Read more in this article. 
  

This is what the simplest version looks like. However, depending on the level of language competency of your students you can choose to have 2 reasons.
In the input session, when presenting the structure of the essay, it’s best to work on sample essays to reinforce assimilation while learning on-job. I have been using the one here and it has been quite helpful for the students. Working on sample essays gives the students a chance to grasp the general point and not to get confused when working on the hometask. 
It is a good idea to write a short sample essay in class as well, on a topic of your choice, so that you can monitor and see how confident the students feel about the new material. In my classroom the students are always writing the first piece in pairs to help each other and generate ideas for speculation. When doing so, bear in mind that it’s best if you have similar ability students working together, as the stronger one will always take over the writing leaving the weaker one unclear on both the task and the workflow. The recent topic I’ve used has been: “Nowadays, food has become easier to prepare. Has this change improved the way people live? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.”