The Personal Essay: An Assignment



The Personal Essay: An Assignment

Your next assignment demonstrates your skills in thinking thoughtfully and writing effectively. You will work on personal writing in the expressive, persuasive, or expository mode.

You may write a personal expressive essay such as “Shooting an Elephant” or “He was a Boxer when I was Small” or a personal explanatory essay such as “On Seeing England for the First Time” or a personal persuasive essay such as “The Men We Carry in Our Minds.” You may write with a focus on a person, place, an object, or an event. As we talk about these essays – their forms and purposes – you will be asked to write prompts for this essay, but the topic choice is ultimately yours. This frees you up to polish your structure and style. You may use analogy, cause and effect, deductive or inductive structure to develop your ideas. CHOOSE ONE.

Conditions:

• Peer editing is a requirement and the peer must be a member of NT, grade 12 English classes.

• The assignment submitted must include:

o Title Page – original title, author’s name, course, teacher’s name, date

o Good Copy – typed, double-spaced, 12 pt font

o Statement of Intent – explaining why you chose the structure that you did, to develop your essay

o All Rough Work – including brainstorming, notes, outline, and rough draft

o Peer Editing Sheet

o Evaluation Sheet

Things to Consider:

Purpose:

• What are your goals? Who is your audience? Submissions to Graffiti are always welcome, so you may want to consider that your target group.

Structure:

• Your title and your introduction need to capture interest. Consider the possibilities of a personal anecdote, a vivid image, a provocative statement, an arresting question, or relevant quotation.

• You may have a stated or implied thesis – just use the form that is appropriate for your purpose.

• Remember unity: the essay as a whole focuses on the development of one idea. Note that each paragraph focuses on one aspect of that one idea.

• Remember coherence: you need to have transitions between ideas and paragraphs to establish relationships between thoughts. These relationships include:

o Examples

o Elaborations

o Explanations/illustrations

o Anecdotes

o Comparisons/contrasts

• Remember the conclusion: does it unify the essay? Does it help us understand the significance of the essay?

Style: (this means the effective use of diction and rhetorical devices to enhance your ideas)

• Are words freshly and cleverly used to achieve an effective tone?

• Are rhetorical devices used for emphasis?

o Is a colon used to stress an example in a more formal style?

o Is the dash used to insert or stress ideas in a casual style?

o Is sentence structure manipulated to alter the impact of an idea?

o Is imagery used to connect us to ideas?

o Are auditory devices used to help the flow of the essay?

Length: 800 - 900 words. We will stop reading when we hit 900 words.

Due Date: December 4/5, 2012

Evaluation for the Personal Essay

|Strand |Criteria |Value |Comments |

|W |Creates a meaningful title and an engaging introduction|0 . . 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . 4 . . 5 | |

|W |Demonstrates the ability to create a mature and |0 . . 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . 4 . . 5 | |

| |original thesis, either stated or implied | | |

|W |Demonstrates the ability to support the thesis and |0 . . 2 . . 4 . . 6 . . 8 . . 10 | |

| |develop the argument with sufficient and persuasive | | |

| |evidence | | |

|W |Demonstrates the ability to use a clear and effective |0 . . 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . 4 . . 5 | |

| |organizational structure (analogy, cause and effect, or| | |

| |inductive/deductive) to develop the essay logically and| | |

| |coherently | | |

|W |Develops a insightful and satisfying ending |0 . . 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . 4 . . 5 | |

|L |Creates a unity of focus through consistent voice, tone|0 . . 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . 4 . . 5 | |

| |and mood which suit purpose and audience | | |

|L |Takes risks to use diction in innovative and expressive|0 . . 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . 4 . . 5 | |

| |ways | | |

|L |Demonstrates the ability to use a variety of stylistic |0 . . 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . 4 . . 5 | |

| |and rhetorical devices | | |

|L |Develops appropriate paragraph structures while playing|0 . . 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . 4 . . 5 | |

| |with a variety of sentence lengths and parallel | | |

| |structures | | |

|L |Demonstrates correct grammar and usage, spelling, and |0 . . 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . 4 . . 5 | |

| |punctuation | | |

|L |Demonstrates the ability to edit and proofread to |0 . . 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . 4 . . 5 | |

| |produce a final draft | | |

B L1 (0 – 2) = very limited, L1 (2.5) = limited, L2 (3) = acceptable, L3 (3.5) = considerable, L4 (4 – 5) = high/very high

Writing Strand = /30 marks

Language Strand = /30 marks

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