This week you will select one of the following topics. Give much thought to whichever topic you choose. Gather your ideas through PREWRITING (pages 8-13).
Topics–
Think of a time your opinion on something changed. Compare the old and new opinion and evaluate why your opinion changed. Give specific reasons for the change. Did something specific happen to cause an immediate change? (For example, my brother watched the documentary Fork Over Knives and then became vegan.) Or was it a gradual change?
Explain your attitude toward a social custom or political belief that differs from your parents’ or grandparents’ attitude toward that same custom or belief. Provide a comparison of your belief and that of an elder as well as giving reasons each generation believes differently.
Evaluate a radical change in your appearance or behavior. Compare the old appearance or behavior with the new and provide reasons for the change. Be as specific as possible when describing the before and after. Make sure you have three clear reasons for the change. (If you feel like you only have one reason, it can often be subdivided by asking why. For example, if you say you changed your look because you “needed a change,” ask WHY you needed the change. If you answer that you were “bored with your look,” ask WHY you were bored, and so forth and so on.)
Compare two people who have influenced your life–one for the better and one for the worse. Evaluate how each person was able to make a difference in your life and how receptive you were to the influence. Can you explain why someone could make you stronger, happier, etc and someone else could make you weaker, unhappier, etc. Think carefully about the things each person said or did and how that affected you. Use specific examples in your essay.
As you develop your essay, keep in mind the importance of sentence variety. The chapters below will provide you with details on how to improve variety and clarity in your writing.
Chapter 27: Variety
Chapter 28: Good Usage
Chapter 29: Precise Word Choice
Chapter 30: Conciseness
To review topic choices and required transitions, click below. Week 9 also provided samples as well as a chart to help you develop your content.
Week 9 Beginning the Evaluating Essay
Using your pre-writing from last week, begin organizing your second essay. You are using everything you have learned thus far. Primarily, you will focus on comparison-contrast and causal analysis, but you will use description, narration and examples as you develop your ideas. The three rhetorical patterns from the first essay will be used pretty much in everything you write for the rest of your life if you want your writing to be successful.
First, organize your ideas. Then, decide if you want to follow the block pattern or point-by-point pattern of development (pages 239-40 in textbook). Remember to use transitional words to link your content. Charts containing transitions used with Comparison/Contrast and Cause/Effect are located in week 9.
All of the parts of the essay are identical in the three essays we will write, so once again, you need to be sure to follow the format of the formal essay: introduction with a great hook to start it off and a very specific thesis with an essay map to end it (or a regular thesis) three body paragraphs (more below), and a conclusion that reiterates your main ideas and then broadens out.
The body paragraphs will need to follow your thesis, so if your thesis compares your old and new ideas on chemical imbalance and your essay map says that the reasons you changed your mind were that through a mess up with a prescription, you found yourself anxious, confused, and unable to control your behavior, THEN your body paragraphs will each cover one of the reasons AND will compare before and after. Remember, you need to thoroughly describe what you are saying. Short narratives often help the reader “see” what you are explaining. In other words, how were you confused?
This essay focuses on causes and effects (the why part), but remember you are also COMPARING and CONTRASTING two things. Make sure you put the comparison in each body paragraph.
As you develop your essay, keep in mind the importance of sentence variety. The chapters below will provide you with details on how to improve variety and clarity in your writing.
Last Completed Projects
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