Essay Punch - Version 1.0 Students who already know how to write a paragraph are taught how to write a short essay. Students learn the techniques of expository writing — to persuade, inform, or describe. Choosing from a menu of topics, students develop an idea and write their own short essay, consisting of an introduction, a two- to three-paragraph body, and a conclusion. Steps to finished essays include pre-writing, outlining, organizing, editing, rewriting, and publishing. For work in progress, there is a save and resume feature. Completed essays can be transferred to students’ own disks or to a word processing program.