Info Essay: CYOA

English 9B Informational Essay: Choose Your Own Adventure!

Use this guided tool to prepare, research, and write your informational essay!

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CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE: INTRO

Watch the video to get started!

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CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE: INTRO

Watch the video to get started!

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HISTORICAL person

HISTORICAL EVENT

Click on a picture to make your FIRST DECISION!

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Great! You have chosen to write about a famous historical figure.

Make sure your sources are credible and reliable. You can't trust everything you find on the internet! Finding information from one of these sources will have more credibility than just typing a name into your search bar:

Now Research!

Your next step is to research about your famous historical figure.Click HERE for a list of suggestions There is likely TONS of information available online about your famous person. Try narrowing your search by thinking of specific questions: Why is my historical figure famous? What happened in their life before their fame that influenced them? Why should they still be remembered today?

Google Scholar

Britannica

Library of Congress

AZ PBS

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Great! You have chosen to write about a famous historical event.

Make sure your sources are credible and reliable. You can't trust everything you find on the internet! Finding information from one of these sources will have more credibility than just typing a name into your search bar:

Now Research!

Your next step is to research about your famous historical event.Click HERE for a list of suggestions There is likely TONS of information available online about this event. Try narrowing your search by thinking of specific questions: What preceded this event / What caused this event to happen? What are the 5Ws of the event?Who? What? When? Where? Why? Why should this still be remembered today? Why is it relevant?

Google Scholar

Britannica

Library of Congress

AZ PBS

Sources

Keep them safe!

Once you have your research, keep the sources that you pulled the information from handy. You will need to submit a works cited page with your essay. Put the links or titles in a place you can get to them again, like a Google Doc or Note in your phone.

Remember, you need 3-5 credible sources to back up the ideas in your essay.

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Categorize!

Categorical

Cause & Effect

Chronological

Right now, you probably have TONS of random information on your historical person. Click the organizational structure that would best group all of your info about your person:

Description

Compare & Contrast

Order of Importance

What if I want to read more about each type? Click the blue RETURN to get back to this screen!

🤔 what would make the most sense for my info?

Categorize!

Categorical

Cause & Effect

Chronological

Right now, you probably have TONS of random information on your historical event. Click the organizational structure that would best group all of your info about your topic:

Description

Compare & Contrast

Order of Importance

What if I want to read more about each type? Click the blue RETURN to get back to this screen!

🤔 what would make the most sense for my info?

Chronological

Return

Once you have your info, try to put it into categories or groups of similar info. These will be your body paragraphs.

SAMPLE Categories

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Later Life / Impact

Early life

Young / Adult

Chronological

Return

Once you have your info, try to put it into categories or groups of similar info. These will be your body paragraphs.

Jan 5, 1979

April 4, 1983

Jan 28, 1986

Contract awarded to build space shuttle

First of 10 flights for Challenger mission

Challenger explodes 1 minute after take off

Oct 23, 1981

Jan 26, 1986

Completed final assembly of space shuttle

Original date of takeoff before delays in paperwork

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Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion

Categorical

Return

Once you have your info, try to put it into categories or groups of similar info. These will be your body paragraphs.

SAMPLE Categories

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Impact Today

Early life/Background

Reason for Fame

Categorical

Return

Once you have your info, try to put it into categories or groups of similar info. These will be your body paragraphs.

SAMPLE Categories

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Impact Today

Who Was Involved

What Happened

Cause & Effect

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Once you have your info, try to put it into categories or groups of similar info. These will be your body paragraphs.

SAMPLE Categories

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How They Addressed the Problem

Effect / Impact

Main Issue/Problem

Cause & Effect

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Once you have your info, try to put it into categories or groups of similar info. These will be your body paragraphs.

SAMPLE Categories

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What Were the Immediate Effects

Effect / Impact Today

What Were the Causes

Description

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Once you have your info, try to put it into categories or groups of similar info. These will be your body paragraphs.

SAMPLE Categories

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Impact Today

Early life

Reason for Fame

Description

Return

Once you have your info, try to put it into categories or groups of similar info. These will be your body paragraphs.

SAMPLE Categories

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Impact Today

Details of Event: early

Details of Event: later

Order of Importance

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Once you have your info, try to put it into categories or groups of similar info. These will be your body paragraphs.

SAMPLE Categories

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Most Important Achievement

Impact Today

Other Achievements

Order of Importance

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Once you have your info, try to put it into categories or groups of similar info. These will be your body paragraphs.

SAMPLE Categories

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Most Important Effect/Impact

Impact Today

Other Effects

Compare & Contrast

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Once you have your info, try to put it into categories or groups of similar info. These will be your body paragraphs.

SAMPLE Categories

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Your Person's Achievements

Compare/contrast to Similar Person(s)

Impact Today

Compare & Contrast

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Once you have your info, try to put it into categories or groups of similar info. These will be your body paragraphs.

SAMPLE Categories

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Compare/contrast to Similar Event

Your Event

Impact Today

PARTS OF A BODY PARAGRAPH

Check out a sample body paragraph here

Topic Sentence

Evidence / Research

Explanation / Analysis

A topic sentence is like a mini-thesis statement. It must be the FIRST sentence in a paragraph. It helps focus the paragraph. Each topic sentence should make it clear what direction this paragraph is going to take.

This part is where you can further explain or draw connections between pieces of evidence. This should be in your own words. You should use this part to draw a conclusion or wrap up this section of the essay.

Evidence is what supports or backs up the claim you are making in your topic sentence. This information should not be from your own brain but from outside sources. All quotes and paraphrases needs to have a citation of where you got that info.

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Check out a sample body paragraph here

Let's Write!!

Using your sources, find some direct quotations you can use within your essay to support and solidify your ideas.

Here are some reminders for your direct quotes:

• They can be the exact words from the article/website OR you can paraphrase them into your own words. EITHER WAY, they get an MLA citation.
• (Author page#).
• These quotes are supporting or backing up the claim you are making in the first sentence of the body paragraph.
• Therefore, quotations can NEVER be the first sentence of a paragraph. They are sandwiched inside the paragraph between your original words.

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ALMOST THERE!

Great work! By now, you have written the MAJORITY of your essay.You should have 3 body paragraphs of information so far.What do you want to do next?

Introduction

Conclusion

How do I start this thing?

Finished with both intro & conclusion? Click here!

Introductions

Follow this order: Start with a hook that gets your reader interested in the topic. --A startling/bold statement, rhetorical question, or famous quotation are all good ways to begin. Give some brief background information about your topic. Don't go into too much detail but provide some context for the event, time period, person, etc. End with the thesis statement (a specific sentence of what your topic is and why it's important)

Check out a sample intro paragraph here

Conclusions >>

How do I wrap this up?

Finished with both intro & conclusion? Click here!

Conclusions

Follow this order: Restate the thesis sentence using different words {Remind them of what your whole point was} If you haven't already, go into detail about how this topic (person or event) is still important and relevant in today's world. Wrap up the paper with a closing statement. It's really effective to bring it back to your original hook from the intro.

Check out a sample Conclusion paragraph here

Intros >>>

Now it's time to gather all your sources you have put aside! We are going to make sure your in-text citations and works cited page are perfect!

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IN-TEXT CITATIONS{the ones inside your paragraphs}

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Examples

Online Article with No Author Listed

Author but No Page Number

Author & Page #

When you don't have an author, provide the title of the article instead. Be sure to put it in quotation marks to show it's a title, not an author.

The goal would be have the author of your source and the page number you found the info, if it was a printed source at one time.

If you know the author of your source, but it was originally created online then it has no page number. Just leave that part off.

Remember that periods always go on the OUTSIDE of the citation!

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Don't see what you need? Click here for full MLA site.

Works Cited Page

Tips & Tricks:

• Gets its own page AFTER your essay
• Has the title Works Cited centered on its own line
• All of the sources you used in your essay get put here, whether you used a quote or just paraphrased info
• Sources go in alphabetical order based on the first word in citation
• It's double spaced (like whole paper) but is in hanging indent where the first line sticks out and then rest are indented in

Wait, these sites will do my citations FOR ME??? YES!

My Bib

Easy Bib

Even Google Docs will do it for you!Tools > Citations

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Citation machine

Congratulations!

You are ready to submit your essay! Once your essay is typed, export it as a PDF and then submit it to StrongMind.

Not sure how to make a PDF? Click on the icon for help!

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🌟 YOU DID IT!!! 🌟

Need those Resources again?

Sample Paragraphs

Here is an example of an introduction, body, and conclusion paragraph. Each part of the paragraph is labeled so you don't miss anything!

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MLA Help

Need help finding how to cite a source or a reminder on how to format your paper? The answer is in this website!

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Paper Outline

Just need the basics? Here is an outline of the parts you should include in order.

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