The Essay

10th Grade Humanities Track

Term One
Fall 2014
Teacher: Tracy Trefethen
971-563-8127 (text)
2trefs@gmail.com (email)


This course is designed to further your development as essay writers. You will learn and practice
strategies and skills that can be used in most of your other high school classes, and beyond into college.
The class will cover a variety of brainstorming, organizing and polishing techniques, and our emphasis
will be on learning several essential rhetorical forms--exemplification, comparison contrast, cause and
effect, and persuasive writing. These forms serve as highly useful means for developing your thoughts
about a variety of subjects. MLA formatting of all papers is required (see below). Expect daily writing
warm ups and in class exercises, as well as weekly drafting and revision assignments. While the
assignments will be fairly short 500+ words, learn to pace yourself to keep up with the steady workload.
You may type or neatly handwrite your work for this class.

Important Due Dates
Each Wednesday a short essay (first draft) is due. See schedule below for more detail.
Each Monday, a polished revision of the draft from the prior week is due.
Friday, October 10: Midterm In Class Essay Exam
Wednesday, October 29: Portfolio and Self-Evaluation Essay.
Friday, October 31: Final In class Essay Exam, Journals Due

Course Requirements and Evaluation
*Essays: (10% each, 50% total)
Exemplification essay
Comparison essay
Contrast essay
Cause and Effect Essay
Persuasive Essay

*Portfolio, Concluding Essay: Self Evaluation (10%)
Due Wednesday, Oct. 29.

*Journal (10%)
Each student will keep a journal of in class writings to be submitted at the end of term. The
journal serves as an in class brainstorming tool to help gather and shape material for the assigned essays.

*Exams (10% each, 20% total)
There will be two exams this term, a mid-term and a final. These are designed to give you
experience with writing effective essays in class. Both exams will be short essays you will draft and
polish in class.

Class readiness, preparation and participation (10%)


Late Work Policy


All deadlines are final. Late work for all major assignments will lose 15% of grade for each day late, up
to two days, after that the assignment will not be accepted for submission and will receive a 0 score.
Requests for extensions of a deadline should not be made without serious cause (serious illness, family
emergency, etc.). Requests for extensions must be made in writing 48 hours prior to the deadline. If you
have an excused absence on a due date or on the day of an exam, it is your responsibility to submit your
work or see the teacher to schedule make up exam immediately upon returning. Make up tests should be
completed no more than one school week after the original exam date.

Daily Plan

Week One, Sept. 8-12
Review: description (writing vividly) and exemplification (fleshing out ideas by giving
supportive examples). Truthtelling vs. Engfish (writing vividly and sincerely.) Brainstorming, and free-
writing. Exemplification.

OUTDOOR WEEK, Sept. 15-19. No Class!

Week Two, Sept. 22-26
Writing Exemplification

Week Three, Sept.-29-Oct. 3
Due: Exemplification Revision; Comparison draft

Week Four, Oct. 6-10
Due: Comparison Revision, Contrast Draft
Mid Term Exam: In class Essay, Friday,

Week Five, Oct. 13-17
Due: Contrast Revision, Causes and Effect Draft

Week Six, Oct. 20-24
Due: Cause and Effect Revision; Persuasive Essay draft

Week Seven, Oct 27-31
Due: Persuasive essay revision; and Portfolio: Collection of drafts for the term AND Concluding
Essay: Self-Evaluation; and Journal.
Final Exam in class essay, Friday, Oct. 31

Main Skills and Concepts Covered in the Class:
*The Whole Enchilada: employing the entire writing process from brainstorming, to drafting, to revising
and polishing.
*How To Develop Sparks into Whole Thoughts: exemplification, comparison contrast, cause and effect
and persuasion.
*Who's Your Mama? Writing for an audience (tone, diction, approach)
*Topic Sentences are for paragraphs; main ideas are for essays
*Super Elastic Cosmic Glue--transitional words and phrases
*Beyond Introductions and Conclusions 101
*Surviving the In Class Essay Exam

FYI Regarding grammar, punctuation and spelling: You are expected to learn these skills as needed, and
please see the instructor for individual help. However, as this course will not cover these fundamental


skills in detail, you should seriously consider tutoring to tackle any persistent issues you are having with
these areas of writing.






Formatting

All papers must be properly headed, with standard MLA style paragraphing and page numbering. See the
following example:



Bilbo Baggins Baggins 1

Ms. Trefethen

The Essay: Grade 10 Humanities

September 1, 2014

Your Paper's Fabulous, Specific, Interesting Title
This is a written description of the proper heading and formatting you will use, as exemplified on
this page. All relevant words of your title should be capped. The title should be centered on the page, 2
spaces down from the header. Your whole essay should be double-spaced. Each page of your essay
pages should be numbered as above (upper right, with your last name and page number on each page.
NOTE: your word-processor will do this for you if you tell it to do so).
Indent each paragraph, as I just did for this new paragraph. Do not leave double spaces between
paragraphs; just indent.
There should be a one inch margin all the way around each page of your document. This is
standard default on most word processors. Make is the default mode of your handwritten documents to,
but just eyeball it; no need to measure with a ruler. This saves room for fabulous Waldorf border
illustrations, but for this class, border art is not expected or required.
Those using computer word-processing may choose the font to use, but know that standard MLA
formatting requires Time New Roman. All typed papers should use font size 12, no exceptions.