We concluded our lessons on the literary essay by first reviewing Atticus ' work from last week and then addressing the purpose of a conclusion. I discussed using the essay topic as a foundation for formulating a final paragraph that comments on the thesis ,in this case, Dickens as a social reformer. We discussed how Dickens' message remains resonant because of his skills as a story teller. I then helped Atticus work through a final paragraph that comments on how Scrooge's redemption can be viewed as a call for societal redemption and social change. We then reviewed Atticus' homework writing summarizing biographical information about the author of our next novel, "Indian in the Cupboard." We added a few salient facts and began to read through tonight's homework , reading a one page discussion on the Iroquois . I discussed how to formulate a topic sentence to be used in summarizing this material.