We continued the essay writing exercise on "A Christmas Carol" by discussing how to end the opening paragraph by introducing the main character's moral development as evidence of the story as a vehicle to induce social reform. I then provided additional instruction about the function of an essay : to assert a position and to support it by textual evidence. After we discussed various aspects of the text as possible evidence of Dickens' intention, Atticus noted them in outline form and then began transforming his ideas into sentences to include in the second paragraph. We looked at a list of transition words that could be used to join these sentences. By the end of the session, we had completed both the introduction to the essay and most of the supporting second paragraph.