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Prioritized List Essay Outlining Assignment

Using the Virtual Writing Tutor’s essay outliner and the Heavenly Bananas essay below, create a prioritized list essay outline. Using that outline as a model, write your own prioritized list outline and essay.

Writing Assignment #1

Write a 5-paragraph prioritized list essay. Ask your teacher for the number of words to aim for.

Paragraph 1—Introduction

Announce #1 of your prioritized list and give evidence why it must be first. Start with a topic sentence with this form: Of all the Xs in the world, the best is Y.

Paragraph 2

Announce #2 of your prioritized list. Use this formula: Next to the X in greatness is the Y. Explain why it is almost the best, and then give a minor fault.

Paragraph 3

Announce #3 of your prioritized list. Use this formula: Following close behind X on my list is Y. Explain why your third choice is good but then give a majors fault or multiple minor faults.

Paragraph 4

Announce #4 of your prioritized list. Use this formula: Not as good as Xs, but still good, are Ys. Explain why it is good but then give a series of major faults.

Paragraph 5—Conclusion

Give more reasons why #1 is first on your list. Begin with the formula: But I never tire of Xs. Here is where strong writers succeed and weak writers fail. Strong writers come up with many new reasons to support their first choice. Often, they are trivial reasons referring to details that other people do not even notice. Weak writers simply repeat their major reasons. They have stopped observing their subject and so their imagination fails.

Here are some pointers:

1. First, choose a category.

2. Second, make a list of four items from that category.

3. Third, rank them from best to worst or worst to best.

4. Fourth, make a list of virtues and faults.

5. Finally, write your essay.

Here are some caveats:

1. Music is hard to write about. Music genres are harder still. Bands are easier. Only write on a topic related to music if you are prepared to be concrete.

2. Activities is probably too broad of a subject. Try pastimes or hobbies.

3. Do not slavishly follow the model “Of all the Xs in the world, the best is Y” if your topic would be better served by modifying it. Consider this: “Of all the seasons in the world, the best is summer.” Now consider this alternative: “Of all the seasons of the year, the best is summer.”

4. If you want to develop your argumentation skills, try prioritizing arguments. For example: “Of all of the arguments for a fast food tax that I have heard, the best is ___.”

|[pic] |[pic] |

|By Pablo Picasso, Uploaded by Percy Meza (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 | |

|(licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |Public Domain image—source: |

Anecdote

In 1956, Pablo Picasso met an American journalist for lunch at a sidewalk café in Paris. After talking for a few minutes, the journalist asked Picasso to draw one of his famous doves on the back of a napkin. Picasso obliged and gave the man drawing. Delighted, the journalist slapped his knee and said, “You know I could sell this drawing at a gallery down the street tomorrow for five thousand dollars, and look how it took you only a minute to draw.”

“A minute?” Picasso replied, “That took me seventy-five years!”

Discussion Questions:

1. Is the structure of this essay the same or different from the structure of the essays you are asked to write in your other courses?

2. What can you learn about paragraphing from this writing assignment? How many fruit are mentioned in each paragraph? How many fruit is each paragraph really about? Where is the topic sentence for each paragraph? Why are the last paragraph and the first paragraph about the same topic? How are the paragraphs sequenced? What do the first and the last paragraph have in common? Why would it be a mistake to repeat reasons from your first paragraph in your last paragraph?

3. Reflect upon the quote at the top of the page. Why does de Kooning say that content in art is “very tiny?” What do you suppose could be more important to art than content? How does repeating the word “content” help to drive home his message?

4. Both pictures below depict a dove. Which one is art? Why?

5. What is the simplest picture of a bird that you can draw?

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Heavenly Bananas

In art, content is very tiny, content.

--de Kooning

Of all the fruit in the world, the best is the banana. To begin with, it is fantastically delicious. I could go on and on about how good it is, but you really must taste it for yourself to believe it. And flavor isn’t everything. The banana is also the easiest of fruits to eat. With a snap, you can break the stem at the top and gently peel back four sections of long yellow skin to reveal a tapered cylinder of soft fruit in the middle. Some fruit have seeds, but with the banana they are so small and soft you won’t even notice that they are there. With other fruits, your fingers get sticky from the juice, but not the banana. It is the cleanest of fruit to eat, as you never need to touch the flesh with your fingers.

Next to the banana in greatness is the clementine orange. This wonderful little fruit makes its appearance in the supermarket just before Christmas, lingers for a few glorious weeks as the first snows settle on the ground, and then disappears without warning mid-January. Similar to a mandarin orange from China, the Moroccan clementine is small enough to fit into your jacket pocket and rugged enough not to burst unless, of course, you sit on it. Perhaps, the best thing about the clementine is that you can peel it and share it with a friend one section at a time. This alone makes it very special. I love clementines so much, but I cannot overlook one glaring fault. Sometimes after buying a big bag of them from a fruit store, I bring them home hoping to eat one after another until I burst from eating too many, but then I peel one and pop it into my mouth only to discover it is as sour as a lemon. When that happens, I regret buying so many. That is when I remember that the banana has no faults.

Following close behind the clementine on my list is the strawberry. What a beautiful fruit! The strawberry is the king of jams and definite proof that winter is over. Sometimes—it is true—a fruit vendor may sell you a tasteless box out of season without a word of warning. I can’t tell you how many times I have been taken in by an overpriced pint of plump strawberries. Recent advances in the science of genetic modification have turned the strawberry into a notorious liar. Nevertheless, provided that you buy strawberries in season, then strawberries can be wonderful. One more word of warning, though, beware of sticky red fingers. Strawberry juice will stain a white T-shirt forever.

Not as good as strawberries, but still good, are apples. I used to believe that apples were the best fruit of all when I was young. I would eat them all through late summer and never mind wormholes or the occasional nasty brown bruise. But as I get older, I notice how difficult it is to find a really hard apple with a good crunch. Now when I bite into an ugly brown bruise or find evidence of a worm or (worst of all) get a piece of apple skin caught between my teeth, I forget my youthful enthusiasm for apples.

But I never tire of bananas. I especially like them when they still have a tinge of green around the edges. Then I know the banana will be firm and slightly sour—the way I like them. Even if they are getting a little overripe and spotty, I can still admire their shape. They make the perfect pistol in a pretend gunfight, and how hilarious it is to see a clown slip on a banana skin! Yes, indeed. The banana is the best fruit in the world, and it has the best name: banana, banana, banana. Heavenly!

(632 words)

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