It's a Frame Up:

Devising Beginnings and Endings, Introductions and Conclusions

Often, getting an essay started and getting it concluded can trouble students more than finding something to say in between. Students can always rely, on the old standbys:

the traditional introduction and conclusion, starting with a quote or a question, telling the audience what will be said and then concluding with what has been said. Granted, these approaches work well enough but these crusty techniques come off as predictable and boring.

Remember:…The Hook, Introduction and Conclusion These are the

delicate, pretty, multicolored wrapping (skin) of the essay.

The prettier, more sensitively and colorfully written the skin, is the more we want to dig into the delicious peach of your essay.

What Is a Framing Device?

It is a single word, a literary/historical reference, or a personal narrative that can provide a fresh way into and out of one’s writing, surrounding it much like a window frame surrounds a glass pane or a decorative frame surrounds a picture or mirror.

Just as the right picture frame becomes one with the painting, the right rhetorical frame becomes one with the composition, enhancing as well as complementing. This frame not only starts and concludes the writing, but can also: reinforce the main idea offer a broader perspective or even interject a bit of

humor.

Why use the “Frame Up”?IT’S CREATIVE

A carefully crafted frame can make satisfying metaphorical connections for both reader and writer, giving a paper a deeper sense of meaning and a way into and out of an assignment that escapes traditional patterns such as, “In conclusion,...”

Three Different Framing Devices1. The Single-Word, Single-Image Frame

2. Allusions as Framing Devices 3. Personal Experience as a Framing Device

The Single-Word, Single-Image Frame Choose a word or short phrase that is

significant to or metaphorical for your topic Free-write on that word or phrase for 3-5

minutes Use portions of that free-write to open your

piece or introduce your thesis. Touch on/reflect on that word or phrase again

in your conclusion Use a bit for your title

The Single-Word, Single-Image FramePublic Opinion

One Lick at a Time “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?” The

brown one will never know. My eighth grade teacher once passed out a handful of Tootsie Pops down each row. As they travelled down the row they slowly began to diminish, until there was one left. The brown one. Some students picked the red one, some picked the blue one, and some picked the orange one. But out of all of the different flavored Tootsie Pops to choose from, only the brown ones remained. Public opinion is very much the same as a batch of Tootsie Pops. Some people like the red one, some the blue one, and some the orange one. Everyone has their opinions on the different flavors. However, some students might have liked the luscious chocolaty goodness of the brown Tootsie Pop, but felt social pressure to see it as boring. Public opinion can work much the same way. Many are influenced by others into believing what they believe. Public opinion influences everyone’s opinions and decisions today. Things from why a brown Tootsie Pop is nasty to why the president is bad. Our virtues completely disappear and are buried. Public opinion covers virtues and surrounds it with sweet layer that no one can resist, while deep inside the best of people is waiting to be discovered and enjoyed. (Thesis)

The Single-Word, Single-Image Frame

CONCLUSION Public opinion is like a batch of Tootsie Pops, everyone has their opinions about each flavor. The media and religions influence a lot of the ways people live their lives. They are the sweet outside that everyone believes and loves but inside is the true nature of the people who are wrapped in the sweet coat of the Tootsie Pop. The virtues we have are hidden by many things, all people have to do is open up their mind a little. So how many times will our virtues be captured by the public opinion? The world will never know.

The Single-Word, Single-Image Frame

The good/bad, shades of grey INTRODUCTION

Shades of Grey:Making decisions during the Cold War

It is difficult to determine if decisions are good or bad when politics are involved. Rather, the political world is shadowed by shades of grey.  Mostly, the people at home think that decisions made by our leaders are good. However, abroad, those same decisions can appear negative. During the Cold War, the United States made many good decisions to completely stop the spread of communism at home and abroad. However, besides many good decisions, the U.S. also made bad choices that left several resentments between nations. (Thesis)

The Single-Word, Single-Image Frame

The good/bad, shades of grey CONCLUSIONAlthough the United States made many good decisions during the Cold War, there were bad decisions that left some countries in disagreement with the United States. The CIA involvement with the Cuban Missile Crisis negatively impacted the United States’ international relations. The Korean War and the Marshall plan helped prevent the spread of communism abroad, while McCarthyism led to the cruel execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Independent of how good or bad the choices were that the United States made, they were determined with the objective of ending communism and preventing both spread at home and abroad. Rarely are decisions wholly good or bad, rather they are grey shades of perspective.

The Single-Word, Single-Image FrameHINT Don’t overthink this type of frame.

In fact, the further away your “single word” is from your topic, the more creative and metaphorical your connection can be.

Allusions as a framing device Choose something from history, literature, or

popular culture that is significant to or metaphorical for your topic

Free-write on that allusion for 3-5 minutes Use portions of that free-write to open your

piece or introduce your thesis. Touch on/reflect on that allusion again in your

conclusion Use a bit for your title

Allusions as a framing device:

An example A student might write a paper on the relationship between humans and plants.

Introduction “Ring around the rosies, a pocket full of posies . . . ” During the

Middle Ages peasant, monks and kings carried a pocket full of flowers to mask the stench of death during the time of the black plague. This is only one of the many useful purposes of plants that have benefited us throughout the ages. Plants and human beings have an integral relationship that demands respect. (Thesis)

Conclusion The paper could then conclude with a reinforcement of the warning

that we depend on plant life to add quality to our own lives: “Without plants, life on Earth would cease to exist as we know it: ‘ashes, ashes, we all fall down.’”

Using folk and fairy tales as allusions One student, writing about her struggle with obesity, puts to use

the question that opens Snow White:

Introduction “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” The evil

queen in Snow White asks this question daily to reassure herself of her beauty. However, in my world the question is not “Who is the fairest, rather it’s, “Who is the fattest?” It is all I can think about as I stand in front of that cruel mirror that taunts me each day as I get ready for school.

Conclusion I now realize that my struggle is not all that different from my

peers who are looking for a way to fit into our glossy, magazine world. Today when I stand in front of the mirror and wide-eyed see the girl staring back, I ask confidently, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the healthiest of them all?”

Personal Experience as a Framing Device

The Anecdotal Frame Choose an experience that is significant to or

metaphorical for your topic Free-write on that experience for 3-5 minutes Use portions of that free-write to open your

piece or introduce your thesis. Touch on/reflect on that experience again in

your conclusion Use a bit for your title

A personal narrative frame example: In paper on the negative impact television violence can have on children, a

student begins with a description of his family’s extended Thanksgiving dinner.

Introduction The peacefulness I felt as the family members gathered to give thanks for

all our blessings vanished once I entered the family room where my younger cousins were mobilized in front of the television for the Power Rangers program. After watching intensely physical confrontations between red and blue clad warriors, the normally docile three- to twelve-year-olds turned into “miniature fighting machines.” They eagerly kicked and punched any interloper including me with no reprimand from their parents. I had to seriously question the laissez faire child-rearing attitudes of my aunts and uncles. This incident reflects the growing problem of children’s viewing of television violence and the need for solutions to this problem. (Thesis)

Conclusion The writer concludes by offering a plan for handling the situation at the next

Thanksgiving dinner: “I may not be the most popular cousin for turning off the Power Rangers, but what is popular is not always right, and what is right is not always popular. I can live with not being popular.”

Personal Experience as a Framing Device:

An example On a much different note, a student could manipulate his memories of a particular odor into a framing device.

For example, for an assignment in writing a reflective memoir, a student might describe his first car-purchasing experience.

Introduction As I opened the door of the polished ’76 Mustang, the musty smell

of the used car and “Blue Bouquet” air freshener filled my senses. I looked at my dad with a sense of pride and winked to tell him this car was definitely the one.

Conclusion Regardless of where I am or what I am doing, whenever I smell the

scent of a Blue Bouquet air freshener, I can hear the rumble of the exhaust behind me, feel the air rustling my hair, and sense the urge to slam the pedal to the floor so I can feel the sheer bone-crunching power of acceleration.

Where do we find rhetorical frames in the “real world”? A good place to find

rhetorical frames commonly used by professional writers is in newspapers that run feature articles and columnists.

Framing Traps TRAP #1

Sometimes a framing device can take on a life of its own, becoming more developed than the content. It is a, pun intended, “runaway frame.” For example, in a student’s essay that describes a

supposedly distasteful fast-food job she held in one town while living in another. For her introduction and conclusion, she gives a hair-raising account of her forty-minute commute to work over black ice. Although the purpose of her paper was to dissuade readers from taking a position at the particular restaurant where she worked, the overly long framing device was far more compelling. No reader would want to live down that hill after reading about the slippery road, the traffic, the delays, and the danger.

Framing Traps TRAP #2

Sometimes writers do not make clear the relation between their framing device and the body of the paper. One student began and ended a paper on the Cuban

missile crisis with quotes from Hamlet. “To be or not to be,” the paper begins, ending with the lines, “whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them . . . .” One may imagine many connections between these words from Shakespeare and the events of the Cuban missile crisis, but the writer did not articulate any of them. Be on the lookout for these connections that have not yet

made it from the your mind to your paper.

The Frame UpOnce

again… A carefully crafted frame can: make satisfying metaphorical connections for both

reader and writer, give the paper a deeper sense of meaning, an extra dimension of authenticity, a satisfying sense of closure, and overall, the paper will project a wholeness, a

coming full circle, that essays with traditional, often ordinary introductions and conclusions sometimes lack.

Examples from your Peers

Introduction: When Frodo Baggins was first appointed with the task to destroy the

Ring, many people had doubted that he would even get close to succeeding. Since he was just a little Hobbit, they thought that he had no chance of surviving the journey to Mount Doom. In The Lord of the Rings, public opinion could have ruined the entire plot of the book. If Frodo had given in to these opinions and believed what people said, the story would have been drastically different. Middle earth would have never been at peace and evil would continue to reign. In our world, public opinion has the power to affect many things including how virtuous society is. While it is true that religion and other institutions that are considered trustworthy and moral can leave a positive effect on society, people often influence each other in negative ways and this may lead to an unethical society.

Examples from your Peers

Conclusion: In the 21st Century, society has fallen to the less

virtuous views about life. Nonetheless, we do have a chance to stand against the opinions that will make society less moral. It is up to us to form the right types of opinions to transform society for the better. And just like Frodo, we can ignore the opinions of others and persevere to make the world a little more virtuous.