As we concluded our discussion of the novel, we last addressed the ongoing theme of guilt and forgiveness. On the board ,I outlined the motif as evidenced in the lives of Mrs. Jo, Miss Havisham, Pip, and even Joe. We discussed how even the noble Joe has regrets. Matthew discussed how Joe regrets not being able to protect Pip from Mrs. Joe's abusive physical beatings. Dickens perhaps suggests we are all sinners at some time. During the second half of the session, I distributed a lengthy exercise entitled "How to Write a Literary Essay." I further handed out the final essay question on the novel. Following the outline of the lesson, we drafted the prominent elements of an introductory paragraph: a thought provoking opening, title ,author ,genre, character and setting focus, and last the thesis. I provided instruction on keeping focus on the thesis of the essay even within the introduction, as well as on word choice and verb tense suggestions . HW- write intro paragraph and one supporting paragraph.