CLASSIFICATION/DIVISIONESSAY

What is a Classification Essay?

• A Classification Essay is an essay in which you select a category, genre, or large idea and separate it into appropriate categories

• A classification essay organizes things, people, places, etc. into categories/classes/types/kinds and presents examples and qualities of the subjects things matter that fit into each class.

Here Is An Example…

• What’s wrong with this classification?– The following are classifications of

houses:• brick• wood• big

Big doesn’t fit. Adobe fits. Big belongs to a different basis of classification—size rather than style.

Classification Essay Structure:

• I. Introduction– States thesis

• II. Body– Identifies, in separate paragraphs, the

various categories, with examples

• III. Conclusion– Restates the categories of the thesis and, as

a significance—or answer to the question “so what?” implied in any composition, stresses the value of this classification system

What is Division Essay?

• Division, or analysis, breaks a thing down into parts so that they can be restructured to form something new, or a synthesis

Here is an Example…

• Discussing the key components of a championship sports team, for instance, would be a division; for that matter, discussing the components of a successful division essay is also division.

Division Essay Structure

• I. Introduction• · States thesis (idea or object to be analyzed, and to what

end)• II. Body• · Renders the parts, in separate paragraphs, with examples

and with• transitional materials to provide a sense of their inter-

relatedness• III. Conclusion• · Restates the parts of the thesis and (the significance—see

Classification• outline, part III) attempts a synthesis or new understanding

of the• constituent parts

So What’s the Difference Between Classification and

Division?• While classifications are separate,

even disparate items brought together under some common denominator, divisions are much more explicitly parts of a single whole.

Another Example….

• Classification of Essays:– Argumentative– Informative– Analytical

• Division of an Essay :– Intro– Body– Conclusion

What Should We Be Looking For?

• S- Speaker• O- Occasion• A- Audience• P- Purpose• S- Subject• T- Tone• E-• R- Rhetorical Devices• S- Style Devices