When given an essay assignment, students invariably have two questions: What kind of essay do you want me to write? and What kinds of information and organization constitute an A essay?You will find that my essay questions tend to be broad and general, covering large themes and/or long periods of time. This is because what I really want my students to get out of my classes is the Big Picture a good grasp of the main themes that characterize the period we have been covering. So the next question that I am asked is How can I expect to cover these broad-based themes adequately in such a short paper? The answer lies in the difference between regurgitation and thoughtful synthesis.. This is what I Twant from you. Sometimes students think that if they spew forth everything in the lectures and books this will automatically constitute an A essay. But the types of topic questions I assign are so broad that it will be physically impossible for you to spew/regurgitate in a way that covers the whole subject adequately in the allotted length. If you choose this approach, you will probably feel that there just wasnot enough space/time to say everything that you needed to say.. This is what I want from you. If you adopt this approach, then you will have no problem writing an A essay in the length/time allotted. The basic idea is to sit back and take a good look at the essay question. Then ask yourself: Can I outline the main themes? Could I organize everything we have studied about this topic into a single outline or framework? How would I do it? This approach allows you to see the most important currents/concepts. You are being asked to stand back from all the details and sift out those ideas, turning-points, trends, or other characteristics that really stand out as being the most crucial.Once you have decided on a few of these, you have a basic skeleton or structure that allows you to organize your essay. At this point it is time to begin filling in some details. But now you have freed yourself from the need to spew back to me vast and indiscriminate streams of facts. With your major currents guiding you, you are in the position of selecting those specific details and examples which will best allow you to illustrate your central themes.I truly dont expect you to give me the details. What I want is a sense that you have decided for yourself which currents and themes are the most important; and that you can illustrate and describe these themes with carefully chosen examples and appropriate evidence. In other words, I want you to be comprehensive, but this does not mean that you must slavishly reproduce in your essay every single little fact, date and name for the whole broad topic. What I do want is a sense that you have thought about the period as a whole, and tried to decide what is important and what is less important.Dates (mostly general time frames), names, and facts are of course crucial to your essay. Without these things your argument will be nothing but a bunch of vague generalizations. But they should be carefully selected dates, names, and facts concrete evidence which supports your judgments about what matters in history. It is this complementary relation between the abstract and the concrete, the general and the specific, which characterizes an excellent essay. The essay is carefully structured, highlighting the most central trends while providing concrete examples. An A essay also makes full use of class materials for examples. In other words, this kind of essay starts with the Big Picture, but it also fills in the appropriate names, dates, and facts to make that picture clear and concrete.Of course, students also ask how I assign grades to these essays. A B essay will fully answer the big picture of the question and give good examples to support the points that are made. It will also make reference to the non-text readings for the class (where appropriate). So what would keep this sort of essay from being an A essay? Organization, grammar, style (repetitive wording, sentence structure, short and choppy paragraphs, word choice, etc.). While a B essay might mention a reading in passing or with a vague reference, an A essay would give specific examples from the readings (showing a deeper understanding). And, of course, the logic used to support the argument is important. You have to convince me of your argument the sharper the argument, the higher the grade. Sloppy arguments make for lower grades.A C essay would have the big picture concept without the supporting details, or only the supporting details with no discussion of the big picture.Any essay which does not bring in some material from the non-text readings (where applicable) will make no higher than a C on the essay.Bottom Line: I expect you to write an organized and coherent college level critical essay with complete sentences and paragraphs. A basic college essay follows the Rule of Three and consists of:In other words, tell me what you are going to tell me, tell me, and then tell me what you told me. Rule of thumb, I have never seen an essay answered completely in less than four paragraphs, most have 5 or 6.