Describe the working processes

ASSIGNMENT

 

ou have a choice between items a) under “Suggestions for Sustained Writing” on pages 89 (if you choose this one, do NOT base your paper on any research — rely on ‘common knowledge & your own observations & experiences); 101; or 107 (if you choose this one, do NOT write a global problem; instead, ‘Pick a local problem, one that you know a great deal about’ as the book says).  As usual, your essay should be from 600-700 words long and should contain an introduction (replete with an underlined thesis statement), a body, and a conclusion, which will offer discovery to the reader.  Your ending again will answer the question, “What did I learn about the relationship between myself and this topic by writing my essay?”

This time, you’ll begin to notice that the rhetorical strategies we’ve used thus far (narration and description) not only play a vital role in most of the essays in the chapter, but will also help your own composition.

In this paper, you will focus on how something occurs; thus, clarity is of paramount concern, as is the use of transitions between stages.  If you simply list the steps and don’t show the connection between them, it will frustrate the poor reader who is trying to understand the entirety of the process.

This time, I want you to find three stylistic techniques that you don’t like from any essay(s) in this section and then purposefully avoid using those techniques in your paper.

At the end of your essay, simply tell me specifically what techniques you avoided.

Again, before you turn this paper in, you must email it to any two other people in the class.  They are to read your essay and answer the following questions:

1)  Is the thesis statement underlined?  Do you agree that it is the thesis, or is the central point stated elsewhere?

2)  What is the reasoning behind the order in which the steps in the process are listed?

3)  Does the author explain clearly how the steps are performed and, if necessary, why they are performed?

4)  Does the author explain problems to avoid, what not to do?  Should this be done in more detail?

5)  Are examples and/or descriptions needed to accompany any of the steps?  Where?

6)  Does the ending answer the questions, “What did I discover by writing about this process?”

As usual, you will attach (not simply paste in) these two critiques to the paper when you send it to me.

The thoughtfulness and helpfulness of the peer-critiques will determine the grades thereon.

Post your Message Center Discussion Question answers (200-250 words each)  1)  What specific elements of E. B. White’s essay do you admire the most and why?

2)  Why do you think James Baldwin wrote ‘Fifth Avenue, Uptown’?  What other works (from this semester or from your own readings) does this remind  you of and why?

3)  Is verbal description slowly becoming extinct as we become more and more a visually-informed, nearly post-literate culture?  What effect do you think this might have on us as a society?

 (Chapter 3 Discussion Questions)

4)  Choose one paragraph (at least ten lines long) by any one author from Chapter 3, and then rewrite it as if another author from this section had written it.  Along with this, list the stylistic elements that you mimicked.

5)  Choose any essay from Chapter 3 and discover where the author diverts from discussing the workings of the process itself.  Is this effective?

6)  Describe your own process for working through the requirements of this class.  Are you organized, haphazard?  A combination thereof?  When do you work the best?