What is an essay?
An essay is a well organized piece of writing; it is comprised of two or more paragraphs carefully woven together with helpers such as transitions in order to convey a specific message
What should I know 
about the essay?
The essay has an easily identifiable beginning, middle, and end. 
The essay gives writers more of an opportunity to express themselves rather than trying to fit everything into one paragraph. 
It has 3 distinct parts:
The Introduction Paragraph
The Bodies (can be several paragraphs) 
The Conclusion
What are the parts 
of an essay?
The Main idea Paragraph...
-Introduces the essay to the readers
-Is usually one paragraph, but can be more
-Is used to capture the readers' attention
-Contains the Thesis, the main idea of the
    whole essay. It's usually the last
    sentence of this paragraph

This is the main idea paragraph!
The Body Paragraphs...
-Contain the details that explain and support 
 the thesis. 
-Each body paragraph has its own main idea that
 relates to the thesis.
These are the body paragraphs!
These are the body paragraphs!
This is the thesis!
The Conclusion...
- closes the essay
- is usually one paragraph, but can be more
- restates the thesis and is where the writer
  expresses his or her opinion
This is the conclusion!
The Informative Essay
So, what kinds of essays are there?
In summary, the essay has...
- an introduction and thesis
- body paragraphs
- and a conclusion
- also called the descriptive essay

- serves to describe or give information 
  about something
The Persuasive Essay
- gives a writer the chance to persuade
  people to believe in the topics and
  details the writer is discussing 

- also known as the argumentative essay
The Comparison Essay
- Used to compare two or more things
- the writer focuses on either the similarities
  or the differences between the things being 
  compared
The Contrast Essay
- used to show the differences
  of two or more things
- the writer focuses only on the 
  differences between two or more things
The Comparison & Contrast Essay
- used to show the similarities & 
  differences between two or more 
  things
- when writing this essay, a general pattern
  should be used (e.g. in all paragraphs, 
  compare the similarities first then the 
  differences second)
The Narrative Essay
- used to tell a story
- often, this type of essay will have
  characters in the story talking. 
- also often is the use of
  phrases such as "a long time ago", 
  "in (insert date)", "one day", etc.
The "How to..." Essay
- used when wanting to show
  how to do something step
  by step.
- is written chronologically
- said by many to be the easiest
  type of essay