ENC 1101 FRESHMAN COMPOSITION 1

ENC 1101 FRESHMAN COMPOSITION 1 | ASSIGNMENT OVERVIEW

Essay 1 Topic/Focus: Narrative essay Length and Format: 1000 words, double-spaced, 12-pt Times New Roman Weight: 100 points Essay 1 Final Draft Due Date: Sunday 2/1, 11:59 pm via Blackboard Essay 1 Materials Due: Pre-writing, outline, first draft with visible, marked revisions, peer review advice from your partner are all due in class Monday 2/2 ! WHAT YOU WILL DO OBJECTIVES: • to convey to readers the meaning of a significant event in your life • to write in a personal, but analytical voice (first-person perspective) • to tell a compelling personal story • to reflect on the universal significance of the event or its outcome ! Topic/Prompt It’s time to develop your first essay in the course, a narrative essay that explains and describes for your reader a specific moment in your experience. A narrative is a personal composition that recreates past

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ENC 1101 FRESHMAN COMPOSITION 1 | ASSIGNMENT OVERVIEW

memories and analyzes how those memories relate to the writer in the present. For this essay your prompt is as follows: ! Write about a time when you used “grit” or hard work to achieve an important goal, overcome an obstacle, reach a milestone, or beat the odds. Your essay should be focused on one specific event--an hour, a few hours, a day at the most. ! You should write this narrative like a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. You should also use descriptive details that draw from the five senses to leave deeper impressions on your readers. Finally, you must properly use dialogue to bring your story to life. Be sure to also consider the rhetorical situation for this event (Norton, pgs. 188-189). Your thesis for this essay (which should appear in the first paragraph) is the event’s significance (what it meant to you, what you learned, what it means to you now). Organize your narrative from beginning to end, and spend some time towards the end reflecting on why this event was so impacting to you and how it helped you better understand how and why grit and hard work led to your success. - Structure your story in a compelling way:

‣ Beginning: introduce readers to the characters and major conflict; create suspense ‣ Middle: build up to the climactic moment; release suspense slowly ‣ End: reveal the resolution of the story; don’t drop the reader - describe the impact

Developing your Essay To complete this assignment, follow these steps:

1. Study your narrative writing lessons and readings before writing your narrative. I am expecting you to apply what you are learning. I can tell if you haven’t read or studied your lessons and course materials.

2. Spend 10 minutes free writing or brainstorming for this essay. Post your free write to discussion 2 as part of your first post.

3. Write an outline for the essay. An outline is NOT a draft of the paper. An outline is a frame or structure. It follows a specific format and has specific rules. Post your outline to discussion 2 as part of your first post.

4. Write the first draft of your narrative essay. After 24 hours, revise your work. Mark specific revisions by highlighting or marking them on the draft itself.

5. Engage in peer review. Be sure to study the any and all lessons and resources on revising and editing for help.

6. Meet with Ms. Ojeda at least 24 hours before your essay is due for individual help. Visit the writing center or complete a SmartThinking consultation no later than 24 hours before the essay is due to earn extra credit.

7. Review the feedback your classmates and instructor gave you on your draft. Revise your essay for content, structure, language, and mechanics.

Outline

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ENC 1101 FRESHMAN COMPOSITION 1 | ASSIGNMENT OVERVIEW

• Introduction (1-2 paragraphs) - ‘The hook’ – opening that grabs readers and foreshadows the significance - Background for the event. Why are you writing about this? Does this event happen to others? Is

what you are writing about a common human experience? Is the experience unique to you? - Thesis: explanation of what the event meant to you or the lesson you learned from the experience

• Body (2-3 pages, broken down into cohesive, well-developed, and well-organized paragraphs) - Provide lots of sensory details and details (REMEMBER RENNS) - Develop your main character (you); show us how you changed from beginning to end - Reflect as you go; don’t wait for the conclusion to make the significance clear

• Conclusion – Reflect on the personal and universal significance (1-2 paragraphs) - Summarize the personal significance - Reflect on the significance this has to your bigger issue

Submitting Your Work Your essay is due by 11:59 pm via Blackboard on Sunday 2/1. Once you have completed your essay and are ready to submit it, upload a Word document to the SmartAssignment activity titled “Essay 1: Narrative,” found in the Essay Assignments section of Blackboard. On 2/2, bring in your required essay 1 materials (first draft with clearly marked edits and revisions and your peer review partner’s feedback on your essay; if you completed discussion 2, you will receive credit for pre-writing and outlining this essay).

Writing Assignment Guidelines • Paper format:

• Include your name, my name, course and section number, assignment, and date in the upper left corner of the first page.

• Put your last name and page number in the header of every page (Adding a Header in Word; Adding a Header in Pages).

• All out-of-class work must be word-processed. Illegible handwritten or typed work will not be accepted.

• Work must be double-spaced (Word ; Pages) and use appropriate font (12-pt Times New Roman).

• The title should be centered (Word ; Pages) on the top line of the first page.

• Essays must have one (1) inch margins. • Need help formatting a paper properly in MLA

format? See the Purdue OWL. • Grammar and Mechanics:

• Proofread your assignment for grammatical and mechanical (spelling, capitalization, and punctuation) errors.

• Academic Honesty:

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ENC 1101 FRESHMAN COMPOSITION 1 | ASSIGNMENT OVERVIEW

• Do not allow anyone else to type your papers for you. • By submitting this essay to SafeAssign, you attest that the work is entirely original for this course

and this assignment and that it was completed entirely by you.

Essay 1 Rubric !

Objective/ Criteria

Levels of Achievement Beginning Developing Competent Advanced Exemplary

Meaning & Development:

ideas, examples, reasons, evidence,

point of view

Unclear POV; little or no evidence; underdeveloped critical thinking (inappropriate or insufficient evidence, examples, reasons).

Some POV is developed but not supported by sufficient evidence; unclear thought process (insufficient examples, reasons, or evidence).

Develops a POV and demonstrates some critical thinking; examples/evidence/ reasons may be inconsistent or inadequate; supporting details are generalized.

Develops a POV and demonstrates competent critical thinking; enough supporting details to support thesis.

Ideas are fresh, mature, and extensively developed; insightfully develops a POV and demonstrates outstanding critical thinking.

Organization: focus,

coherence, progression of

ideas

Disorganized and unfocused; serious revision in coherence is needed; thesis is not developed or not present.

Limited organization and focus; coherence is unclear; insufficient and/or unclear evidence and development.

Mostly structured and focused; coherence is present, though not all ideas relate to the thesis; clear support, though further development is needed.

Structured, organized, and focused; coherence and unity is present; presents a thesis and suggests a plan of development that is carried out.

thesis is presented with clarity; all ideas relate to the thesis; specific and accurate support is provided.

Language: word choice

and sentence structure

Displays frequent and fundamental errors in vocabulary; sentences are simplistic and illustrate constant errors.

Developing use of language (weak vocabulary or word choice); sentence structure is basic; consistent errors appear.

Some inaccurate or wordy use of language; mastery of sentence structure; minor errors or one consistent error (run ons or fragments)

Proficient use of language and sentence structure; minor errors with complex sentence structures.

Sophisticated choice of language and sentence structure; uses words correctly and avoids wordiness, jargon, and sentence-level errors.

Conventions: grammar,

punctuation, spelling,

formatting

Errors interfere with the writer’s ability to communicate with purpose; pervasive mechanical errors; inappropriate format

Errors interfere with the writer’s ability to communicate purpose; significant errors; errors in format are visible

Errors interfere, but not sufficiently to affect the writer’s ability to communicate; sentences are correct but simple; some weaknesses in format

Occasional errors do not interfere with writer’s ability to communicate purpose; appropriate format

Control of conventions contribute to the writer’s ability to communicate; free of most mechanical errors; appropriate format

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