Pull out a sheet of paper and a pencil. Think about cause and effect relationships and write the cause and effect sequences you see while you watch this MOVIE TRAILER.
After watching the movie clip, work in pairs to create a chain of 3-4 cause and effect sequences. If you have trouble creating these chains. You may check the CHART from the previous class period.
You may want to familiarize yourself with the following vocabulary:
Squirrel: The small furry animal in the video
Acorn: The nut the squirrel was carrying
Avalanche: A large body of snow that falls from a cliff/mountain
Groups will then present their chain of events to the class.
Next, I want you to imagine causes and effects on the topic of "High School Dropouts." Students on one side of the room should brainstorm causes and students on the other side of the room should brainstorm effects. You guys will then share your causes and effects with the rest of the class.
Afterward, consider the following diagrams:
Graphic Organizer 1
Graphic Organizer 2
Graphic Organizer 3
We will discuss the uses of each of these organizers and decide which organizer would be best for an essay about the causes/effects of High School Dropouts.
Next, you will read this ESSAY about the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States. You will then work in pairs to create an outline structure that fits the essay. I will then present a general CAUSE AND EFFECT OUTLINE TEMPLATE.
When you organize cause and effect writing there are several different ways in which you can organize the main points of your essay depending on your topic.
Sometimes you will want to organize them so the most significant point is presented first and the least significant point is presented last. This would be appropriate for a topic concerning the "Effects of Dropping out of High School."
Another possible way to organize your main points would be in a causal chain where one cause or effect leads to another and so on. You would use this if you were describing the sequence of events in the Ice Age movie clip that we watched at the beginning of class.
A third style of organization requires the information to be presented in the order that it occurred. This is often used for historical events like in the essay you read earlier.
We will briefly go over ways to structure your thesis statements in cause and effect essays. The general format is in the outline that I presented to you. Other options to consider can be found on THIS DOCUMENT. Work on making a good thesis statement for a cause/effect essay for the topic of high school dropouts. We will share some examples with the class.
