Several years ago, the Ministry of Education decided to introduce access to basic exams. To be among those who pass the exam, you must receive a credit for the December essay. Its structure is quite simple. It differs from task number 25 in the Unified State Examination in the Russian language, where you need to write an essay of 8 paragraphs. If the USE has already given a text that you should rely on, that is, find the problem of the text, express your attitude to the problem and argue with examples from works of art, then the structure of the December essay on literature is more like an essay.
What are directions
Every year in August, the Ministry of Education publishes five directions on the website of the Federal Institute for Pedagogical Measurements to give a rough idea of the topics of future essays. Very often, directions are abstract concepts, such as friendship, love, enmity, path, time, and so on. The subject gives a wide field for reasoning, but no specifics. For example, the direction is "path". What does path mean? A path is a road that a person travels from one point to another. And this is not necessarily a geographical concept. This word has many meanings. We will talk about the road that the heroes of a work of art are destined to go through, like the peasants from Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Russia." And we will definitely raise the topic of the life path of a person who makes mistakes, does good, brings evil into this world, lives imperceptibly, like Akaki in Gogol's "Overcoat", or brightly, like Lermontov's Pechorin. The same can be said about any direction. For example, love is not limited to the relationship between a man and a woman. There is love for the Motherland, which Yesenin's poems are filled with, for animals, as in the stories of Bianchi or Ushinsky, for people, as in Danko's in Gorky's story "The Old Woman Izergil", for life, as in the stories of Jack London.
Intro
Like any creative written work, the structure of writing a December essay on literature consists of an introduction, main body and conclusion. Before you start writing, read all the topics and think carefully about each one. Choose the one to which you can pick up the best examples from fiction. Only then start thinking about the introduction. Students most often experience difficulties at the beginning of work. They don't know what to write the very first sentences about. Start the introduction of the final December essay by structure in one of the ways below.
The first way to start writing
Themes of essays are more often in the form of moral and philosophical concepts. This enables the student to begin the introduction by thinking about the meaning of the word. Let's say the topic of your essay is "Friendship in a person's life." You can start the essay with questions about friendship: "What is friendship? Is there a false friendship? Can you consider a friend of a person whom you do not trust?" Such a series of questions will give you the opportunity to express your attitude towards this concept. That is, you will get a completely complete introduction.
Second way
You can write one question that you take directly from the topic of the essay. The answer to it will be the introduction. Let's give an example: "What does friendship mean? I think that these are relationships in which a person has confidence that they will always come to his aid, will not leave him in trouble, support him in grief and rejoice with him in his victories. If you feel that If you can't absolutely trust a person, then you can't consider him a true friend." This is an example of the beginning of an intro. Then you can continue your reflections on friendship, leading them to the first example from the literature.
Third way
You can, without questions, immediately start writing a definition of friendship: "Friendship is a relationship between two or more people based on trust and mutual assistance." You give your concept of friendship. Do not copy from the dictionary, because the December essay, the plan and structure of which you mustto think - these are the individual thoughts of the student. If you use sayings and aphorisms, be sure to indicate the author, otherwise it will be plagiarism.
Go to the main part
Don't forget the main principle of work. First, choose a topic to which you can easily pick up arguments. You sketch out the arguments and only then start working on the introduction. So, the introduction has already been written and we need to move on to the main part, that is, examples from the literature. The transition must be smooth. Before the example itself, write a couple of sentences that will lead to the argument: "The theme of friendship is most often found in the works of both Russian and foreign writers. Mark Twain, Jack London, Boris Kataev, Kir Bulychev, Charles Dickens and many other wonderful authors wrote about friendship But I want to give an example from a book that touched me more than others." Then you continue to reveal the topic using the example of the work that you have chosen as an argument.
How to choose examples
When you talk about moral concepts, you can give an example not only positive, but also negative as a counterbalance. For example, in the first part, you give an example of the friendship between Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn from Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. You will talk about how the boys helped each other out in difficult situations and trials, how they experienced many adventures together, but remained friends. This will be your positive example.
Secondargument
As a counterbalance, we can recall Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov and his story "A Hero of Our Time". In this case, we will talk about Pechorin, who did not appreciate the friendship of Maxim Maksimovich, although they also experienced a lot together, lived side by side for a long time. Mention the story about Bel when Maxim Maksimovich saw how Pechorin treats a poor girl, but did not reproach him. When, a few years later, they accidentally met at one of the stations, Pechorin did not want to talk to him. Be sure to say that the main character is generally not capable of friendship. Here are your two arguments for the main body.
Transition from one part to another
Since you give the second story as an antipode, you need to make the transition from the first example to the second. A couple of suggestions will suffice. "If we are talking about friendship, then this is a relationship between people. Friendship is not one-sided, but there are people who are absolutely not capable of this feeling." And here we already give a second example about Pechorin. You don't need to write much. The main thing is to logically connect the two parts of the structure of the December essay, an example of which we are analyzing.
Conclusion
Do not forget that the main part should be the largest in volume. In terms of structure, the introduction and conclusion of the December essay should be about 40% of the entire text, otherwise the main part will be too short and may not be counted. In conclusion, you need to summarize what you wrote earlier. That is, at the beginning of the essay you were thinking about friendship,talked about what she means to you, how you imagine her. Then you confirm this with examples from fiction, and in the conclusion, talk about how you proved that friendship means a lot to a person, as the examples you give indicate. In the end, one may wish to find a good friend for life who can be trusted.
Where to find examples for the main part
To write an essay on literature, it is not necessary to have a large number of read works in your luggage. The list of works that is included in the school curriculum and which you read from grades 5 to 11 is quite enough. Do not ignore the short stories of Chekhov, Shukshin, Tolstoy, Bunin and other authors. These works are easy to remember and are great as arguments. This way you won't get confused by a large number of heroes and won't make a mistake for which you can lose a point. Pay attention to the stories not only of the authors of the last century, but also of modern ones. Do not cite fictitious works and authors as an example. The fraud will be exposed and your work will not be credited.
Hints
To prepare for an essay, take a small notebook where you write down the names and authors of works from the school curriculum. Write down the names of the main characters, key words and two or three sentences in which you reveal the main theme of the work and briefly outline the plot. With larger works such as "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy, "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov,"Quiet Don" Sholokhov will have to work more scrupulously. But in terms of preparation, they are more convenient. It's easier to read a few big novels than a hundred short stories. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" has all the themes that can be covered in an essay. Here are friendship, and the problem of choosing a life path, and love, and betrayal, and death, and family problems, and problems of upbringing. Before you start your December essay, scroll through the writing plan and structure in your head, imagine roughly what you want to say to the reader. This will make it easier to decide on the text.
