Cause and Effect Essay

OVERVIEW OF THE ASSIGNMENT

Often, longer essays employ a number of strategies to prove a thesis. One effective rhetorical strategy that is often used is cause and effect. In this assignment, students will learn the rhetorical strategy of cause and effect. They will study the methodology of the strategy, how it works in a newspaper article, and how it can be employed to write an effective essay. Students will develop a detailed topic sentence outline of this strategy and get peer comments on a rough draft so that they can revise the essay.

OBJECTIVES

    • To learn the relationship between causes and effects

    • To practice close reading

    • To identify main ideas

    • To think critically and ask relevant questions necessary in the development of a good essay

  • To learn the importance of not to jumping to conclusions but to verify the causes carefully with evidence.

    • To create a detailed outline

    • To incorporate and analyze evidence

    • To write an effective, well thought out essay

TIPS FOR THE INSTRUCTOR

    • THE BENEFITS OF THIS ASSIGNMENT: Having students closely identify and analyze the immediate and extended causes of an issue and its short and long term effects is pertinent to their development as critical thinkers. Although every day a news story is presented as current, students learn that a "current" issue is actually a consequence of other issues that have occured prior to this. They also learn to anticipate the effect and grow eager to learn how the story plays out. Hence, they learn to measure and consider their own opinions against the facts that are revealed in the effects.

    • THE CHALLENGES OF THIS ASSIGNMENT: Since this assignment requires students to identify the causes and effect in one article, and in journalistic writing these two elements of cause and effect are not present in chronology, students find it challenging to discern the connection between the pieces of information. Also, since many of the causes and effects may spread over a number of articles, it is hard to remain limited to only only article. But do remember that this is a medium length assignment--perhaps a two-three page essay; hence, it is important to retain a narrow focus. It helps if you use a sample article in class and in a class dicsussion, pinpoint the causes and effects that are evident only in this article. A good method is to divide the class into groups and have each group identify a few causes and their consequent effects in a selected story.

    • POSSIBLE VARIATION: If you wish to have students develop a longer essay, you can have them incorporate additional related articles. In this case, the methodology will remain the same, only the scope of the assignment and the research element will change.

  • TIP: Be sure to model close reading and paraphrasing. Unless students read carefully, the assignment is not effective.

ACTIVITIES

Step 1: Reading actively

    • Have the students read the story thoroughly to see what it is about. Have them summarize the central idea of the story in their own words and write it down.

    • Have them read the story again, this time highlighting/marking the topic and the different ideas/points, and conclusion and relate to the central idea. (These will help them identify the thesis.)

    • Have students pay special attention to the causes that led up the central idea and the effects that seem to have resulted from this issue. Remind them that they may find that these causes and effects are not developed coherently. Ask them to connect these ideas as they mark them. A good way of keeping track is to number them as "Cause 1, Effect 2, etc." Also note that these main ideas/causes and effects may not be introduced clearly with topic sentences. If necessary, have them refer back to Learning to Read the Newspaper.

Step 2: Taking Notes

    • Have students write down the causes and effects. Remind them to identify the immediate and extended cause and the short term and long term effects.

    • Have students identify the different details that are used to develop the cause and effects; for example, historical background, narratives of people, excerpts from interviews, quotations, statistics, description of events, etc. (These are the evidence in the subpoints of a cause or effect.)

    • Have them summarize this evidence and note it down under the main ideas as evidence for subpoints.

    • Have them add their own brief explanation of this evidence to connect it to the main idea (cause or effect).

Step 3: Developing a Thesis

    • Tell students to look at the main ideas (causes and effects) that they have gathered from the article and develop a possible thesis statement for the article. NOTE: In newspaper stories, often the central idea is suggested

Step 4: Developing an outline

    • Use the handout below to have students develop a detailed outline for this cause and effect essay

Step 5: Writing a Rough Draft

Step 6: Peer Reviews

Step 7: Revising the Essay

Handouts for Cause and Effect:

***SCROLL DOWN TO "ATTACHMENTS" TO ACCESS HANDOUTS

  1. Cause and Effect Outline

  2. Cause and Effect Peer Review