Students are asked to select their own animals before watching the first video. They should have information about the animal with them as they watch the video (name, location, what it eats, any interesting facts). Students will learn about the structure of an essay and look at examples of essays about animals. They will then start to plan their own essays, specifically looking at the information they will need for the three body paragraphs. We will go over the proper structure of a paragraph, a 

 After reviewing the body paragraphs for both content and mechanics, students will work on writing an introduction and conclusion for their essays. The presented information will discuss how to use a hook in the introduction and how to answer “So what?” in the conclusion. Special emphasis will be given to writing a thesis. 

 Now that students understand the structure of an essay, they’re going to do more independent work! First, they will select a topic for their second essay (a natural or a man-caused disaster like Pompeii, the Titanic, or the San Francisco Fire; a landmark, monument, or geographical feature like Mount Everest, the Golden Gate Bridge, or Uluru; or a country of their choice). In this class, they will practice taking copious notes, organizing that information with the use of graphic organizers, and c 

 Almost done! We’ll perfect those body paragraphs, paying more attention this time to transitions between paragraphs, sentence structure, and sentence variety. Now we just need to write an intriguing introduction and a fantastic conclusion -- and we’re done!