Essay
#1 | What did you learn from that event?
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ENGL 002
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Worth: 100 points total
Important
Dates:
·
Wednesday,
Feb. 10th: post thesis rough draft to Blackboard in class
(scheduled)
·
Monday,
Feb. 15th: post topic sentences for essay to Blackboard
·
Wednesday,
Feb 17th: complete draft (at least 4 paragraphs)
·
Monday,
Feb. 29th: revised and edited Essay 1 draft
Format
Guidelines:
·
Header,
@ top left-hand corner:
Name
EN002
Assignment
Title
(Center, Be Creative, Hint at Thesis)
·
MLA
format, including: 12 pt. font, either Times New Roman or Cambria; double-spaced
·
Use
of rhetorical conventions, including 5-paragraph essay format. Must be at least
four paragraphs (intro, two body paragraphs, conclusion)
·
450-500
words (work towards two complete pages)
·
Title
that acts like a second thesis!
Prompt (Purpose)
·
Craft a four- to five-paragraph
narrative-reflective essay in which your main focus is to explore one major
life lesson an event has taught you (and perhaps still teaches you).
o
Your essay uses narrative, descriptive, and
analysis strategies.
o
Your thesis should clarify the lesson
learned from the event
o
This essay is about you and what you have
learned from the event, so use “I” as your main point of view.
Critical Thinking On the Topic
Sometimes
the urge to write comes from a culturally shared event – from the most
devastating to the most celebratory of moments. Using the event as subject,
especially in poetic form, is not just to restate – or record – what happened,
but to uncover from the event some symbolism, some meaning of the human
experience.
The
writing that comes from an event, then, can be emotionally raw for the writer,
and might be in danger of didacticism (trying to teach others what to take from
the event). However, the urge to simply teach must be balanced by curiosity –
your exploration of what the event means to you.
Don’t
be afraid to ask questions the event has left you with. Don’t be afraid to
describe images and actions of the event that stick in your head and provide
you with meaning.
Also,
don’t be afraid to pick a “smaller” event. You can write your essay on an
individual event that, in many ways, is a shared event—local festival, a
hurricane, a local murder or kidnapping, a gas tanker crash, a birthday party,
a funeral, that time on the bus in first grade where you brought a fishing
knife that was your dad’s and you had to see the principal when another student
tattled. That time in junior high when your guidance counselor told you in his
office that you deserved to fail Guidance class because you missed a week of
class with bronchitis.
A
Few Creative Inspirations & Writer’s Tools:
• Use our Unit 1 readings to inspire your creative language and to
inspire ideas for thinking about events
• Use Rules for Writers readings
to understand how to turn your creative idea into an academic essay. You are
reading poems and stories, but you are writing an essay.
• Draft poem that remembers/honors a major historical event (such as
9/11, Arizona shooting, passing of Universal Healthcare Act, or any other event
since you were born!)
• “Catchy facts,” in general,
are helpful. Re-read any newspaper clippings, your own journal, or reflect on
your own memory of what you remember. How can such facts be re-tuned into your
poem?
• Leave “emotions” at the door. Replace words that name emotions
(sad, happy, angry) with psychical descriptions of actions and objects: How
can I get the tone across in here without saying the emotion itself?
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