anxiety
Write an essay that describes and discusses a specific moment in which your anxiety about a certain situation came to a peak point, and in which you then took action (or didn’t!). This part of your essay will be about two pages long. Then, after you describe this moment, discuss your current perspective on this moment for half a page.
More explanation about the narrative portion of the essay: This is the part where you tell your story about your moment of anxiety. Establish context first. Who were you at the time? Where were you living? What was taking place in your life? When was this? The first task is to get your reader well acquainted with your life. Then, the bulk of your essay should be spent on “zooming in” and describing the core moment of anxiety and action. How did this moment come about? What exactly happened? Be precise. Make your readers feel we are right there in the scene. Let us see, hear, and feel what you did.
To do this, you will include vivid sensory details, memorable specifics, three-dimensional characters, suspense, imagery, dialogue, internal monologue, interesting language that creates a “voice,” figurative language (metaphors and/or similes), and even humor when appropriate. These writing techniques will bring your reader right into the scene you are describing and help you avoid a flat, report or overview-style narrative. The shorthand for all this is “show don’t tell” and this approach keeps storytelling of all sorts interesting. Note: make sure you read the lecture for this week carefully to get help with all these necessary techniques.
More explanation about the reflection portion: after your two-page narrative portion, give your reader a half page in which you discuss what has changed for you now that you have had this experience. Sometimes we look proudly back on a key moment in our lives. Sometimes we wish we’d done things differently. What did you learn about yourself–and the world–in this moment? How and why? In what ways are you different now because of this experience then? Try not to be either too general or too sappy. Be specific and be real. We want to hear the truth as it was/is for you.
MLA Guidelines:
Your drafts and final versions of your Essays #1, #2, and #3 must be MLA formatted. This concerns how things are laid out on the page. As a handy visual guide, the sample student essay you read this week is MLA formatted.
Here are a few things that might not jump out at you from seeing the example, but that are important to note: your margins should be one inch on all sides, and your font size should be 12 point. No smaller or larger–12 point. Also: MLA calls for double-spacing, but you can tweak this a little and go more closely spaced, all the way down to 1.5 spacing–but not any closer together. No single spacing, and remember, the absolute max for this assignment is four pages.
The standard word count for ONE double-spaced, MLA formatted page is 250 words. You by no means need to get this exactly, but try not to go under 250 words per page.
Because you are not using any outside sources for this essay, you will of course not need to write a Works Cited Page.
GRADING RUBRIC/CATEGORIES (Here is how I will grade the final Essay #1s):
Narrative Portion: ____/8
Reflection/Conclusion Paragraph: ____/3
Style/Technical: ___/4
Draft on time?
Final on time?
Tutoring requirement (worth two points from final score) completed?
Final Score: /15
