Essay writing in sixth form - Miss, what's an example?

This post is prompted by a question which stopped me in my tracks. When giving feedback on an essay, I told a student that he had to use more examples, to which he replied, "Miss- I don't know what you mean by an example."  This had me stumped - how can you not know what an example is? Although this may be a rather extreme case, I'm pretty sure that there are lots of students who could use some sharpening up in the area.  I get too many essays in at the start of the year where pupils make a point (usually a sweeping generalisation) and simply name their example with no further explanation as if to say, "BOOM!  Impressive, huh?" Um, no - not even close.
 
Finally, after recovering myself, I came up with this:
 
Why use examples?

• They allow  you to demonstrate use of other tenses/voices e.g.  past
• They back up your point by providing evidence

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY.. 

• Use them to explore the full implications of the point you’re making – remember you are getting most of your points for the development of your ideas.

Types of examples

A fact or statistic : e.g. 1/3 of children have their own TV

A concrete example: e.g. Sesamstraße is able to help children to read and count whilst also having fun

A personal example: e.g. I used to watch Bob the Builder with my parents..

Although backing up your argument is, of course, essential, I think that leads many students down cul-de-sacs which they then can't get out of.  The key thing is whether it helps you to demonstrate depth of understanding, and whether it helps you to explore all of the implication of the point you're making. 

Getting students to understand examples

We have only just set our first proper AS- style essay.  So, what have we been doing in the meantime?

Using the examples in texts - and making the most of them
The first task is get students to recognise that each text is also presenting an argument, and a set of ideas.  Once we have battled through the comprehension, I get them to find the examples in a text.  I then ask them to summarise what these points can show. This is especially useful for statistics.  Take the example that 1/3 of German children have their own TV.  We came up with a long list of implications: parents can't supervise, parents don't have control, children can watch unsuitable programmes, children may watch TV too late and not get enough sleep.  This acts not only as a great way of re-using the language from the text, but really gets them thinking about the ideas, and gives them practice in thinking about how to use examples.  Asking students to summarise the key ideas in a text is also a great homework /starter for the next lesson.

Guided analysis of concrete examples
The TV topic is such a great one to start with.  The students were given links on Edmodo to lots of different German TV clips and asked to write about them using a series of prompts to help them think about how they may or may not benefit children. All students produced some great analysis of the pros and cons.  This will then help them with their essays.  Well, that's the hope, anyway.

In my next post, I'll look at structuring the essay