The Stony Brook School Essay Wheel Poster — Flint AI Policy Library

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Essay Wheel

The “Essay Wheel” writing curriculum of The Stony Brook School is based on Harvard University’s Writing Program and its "Elements of the Academic Essay" and Messiah University’s "Writing Across the Curriculum" and their Essay Wheel. The "wheel” is a direct adaptation of Messiah University’s Essay Wheel and created in consultation with and with the permission of Messiah’s Director of Writing, Dr. Christine Perrin.

This Essay Wheel is intended to be a scaffolded approach to unify the vision and language for writing analytical essays in grades 7-12 in all disciplines and departments. Though by no means the only writing materials or curriculum that our students use, it intentionally encourages students and faculty to communicate patterns in their writing to identify opportunities to grow in wisdom and skill in their rhetoric.

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A description of each element of the Essay Wheel is found below; each has been adapted from Harvard’s Writing Program.

Students should use wisdom and discernment in determining the extent to which they should conform to the subjects below for an individual teacher, assignment, or project. The Essay Wheel is designed to unify language and expectations but not to homogenize our writers or assignments.

Thesis

The main insight or idea about a text or topic, and the main proposition that your essay demonstrates. It should be true but arguable; be limited enough in scope to be argued with available evidence; and get to the heart of the text or topic being analyzed (not be peripheral). It should be stated early and it should govern the whole essay.

Analysis

The work of breaking down, interpreting, and commenting upon the data, of saying what can be inferred from the data such that it is evidence for a thesis. Analysis is what you do with data when you go beyond observing or summarizing it: you show how its parts contribute to a whole or how causes contribute to an effect; you draw out the significance or implication or assumption not apparent to a superficial view. Analysis is what most makes the writer feel present, as a reasoning individual; so your essay should do more analyzing than summarizing or quoting.

Argument

The series of ideas that the essay lays out which, taken together, support the essay’s thesis. A successful argument will do more than reiterate the thesis, but rather make clear how each idea develops from the one before it. The argument should show you not only analyzing the evidence, but also reflecting on the ideas in other important ways: defining your terms or assumptions; considering counter-argument – possible alternative arguments, or objections or problems, that a skeptical or resistant reader might raise; offering a qualification or limitation to the case you’ve made; incorporating any complications that arise, a way in which the case isn’t quite so simple as you’ve made it seem; drawing out an implication, often in the conclusion.

Evidence

The data – facts, examples, or details – that you refer to, quote, or summarize to support your thesis. There needs to be enough evidence to be persuasive; the right kind of evidence to support the thesis; a thorough consideration of evidence (with no obvious pieces of evidence overlooked); and sufficiently concrete evidence for the reader to trust.

Structure

The sequence of main sections or sub-topics, and the turning points between them. The sections should be perceptible and follow a logical order, and the links in that order should be apparent to the reader. But it should also be a progressive order—there should have a continuous direction of development or complication, not be simply a list or a series of restatements of or takes on the thesis.

Motive

The reason, which you give at the start of your essay, why someone might want or need to read an essay on this topic, and to hear your particular thesis argued— why that thesis isn’t just obvious to all, why other people might hold other theses on your topic (that you think are wrong or insufficient) or be puzzled or unclear about it. This won’t necessarily be the reason you got interested in the topic (which could be private and idiosyncratic) or the personal motivation behind your engagement with it. Defining a genuine motive should often be done in your introductory paragraphs.

Orienting

Bits of information, explanation, and summary that orient the reader who isn’t expert in the subject, enabling such a reader to follow the argument. The orienting question is, what does my reader need here? The answer can take many forms: necessary information about the text, author, or event (e.g. given in your introduction); a summary of a text or passage about to be analyzed; pieces of information given along the way about passages, people, or events mentioned.