Blog Your Blessings: A Perfect Essay
It's a perfect essay, I told my students. And we're going to read it to see how a perfect essay is written, and how you can learn to read for answers in one and then to write one. The perfect essay was President Obama's letter to his daughters, which ran in the Parade section of our January 19 newspaper. In it, Obama explains to his daughters--and to all American children--why he chose to run for the presidency. He begins with a clear introduction in a paragraph that ends with a thesis statement. Each of the next seven paragraphs identifies a reason he chose to run for office. The conclusion summarizes the essay and includes a restatement of the thesis. The structure is textbook perfection. The content is a story of love for his daughters and the belief that if you love your family you do everything you can to make their lives as good as they can be. The bottom line: running for office was a gesture of love. In the words of another brilliant writer--Elie Wiesel--the the