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, authors name, course, teachers 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: Due Date:

800 - 900 words. We will stop reading when we hit 900 words. December 4/5, 2012

Evaluation for the Personal Essay Strand W W W Criteria

Creates a meaningful title and an engaging introduction Demonstrates the ability to create a mature and original thesis, either stated or implied Demonstrates the ability to support the thesis and develop the argument with sufficient and persuasive evidence Demonstrates the ability to use a clear and effective organizational structure (analogy, cause and effect, or inductive/deductive) to develop the essay logically and coherently Develops a insightful and satisfying ending Creates a unity of focus through consistent voice, tone and mood which suit purpose and audience Takes risks to use diction in innovative and expressive ways Demonstrates the ability to use a variety of stylistic and rhetorical devices Develops appropriate paragraph structures while playing with a variety of sentence lengths and parallel structures Demonstrates correct grammar and usage, spelling, and punctuation Demonstrates the ability to edit and proofread to produce a final draft

Value
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Comments

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W L L L L

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L L

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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 = Language Strand =

/30 marks /30 marks