Midterm Review

English `150
English 150TheProcess
Midterm
Writing Review
The Descriptive
Essay

The Narrative
Essay

The Persuasive
Essay

The Personal
Essay
PREWRITING
Bouncing your brain.

Some creative ways to get the

writing process started
To Begin…
And, “Why not?”
"Some men see things as
they are and say 'Why?'
I dream things that
never were and say,
'Why not?'"
George Bernard Shaw
Welcome whimsy. Be foolish.
Dream.
The Writing Process
 Writing as a process
– an overview

• Think of writing as a process: a set of

activities you go through to produce a
finished product.
• This process has three distinct stages:
1) Planning and Shaping
2) Drafting
3) Revising and Editing
 Planning and Shaping
• Find a focus that fits your purpose and
audience before you start.
• Gather ideas:
– Keep a journal.
– Brainstorm or jot down lists of ideas.
– Free writing - let your mind go.
– Mind mapping / idea trees.
– 5 Ws - (Who, What, When, Where, and Why)
– Outlining
 Drafting

• Getting your ideas into visible form:

– Prioritize your ideas.
– Write complete sentences.
– Divide text into paragraphs.
– Organize paragraphs into Introduction, Body
and Close.
 Revising and Editing
• Large-scale changes: adding text, cutting,
replacing words/phrases, rearranging parts.
• Editing: checking the correctness of grammar,
spelling, punctuation and mechanics.
• Proofreading: are there any typos?
 Grant Wood’s
American Gothic
The Thesis Statement
A Road Map for Your Essay

Int ESS
ro d
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AY
The ion
sis
S ta
tem
Bo d ent
yP
ara
gra
Bo d ph
#1
yP
ara
gra
B od ph
#2
yP
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#3
 Definition

• A thesis statement is a complete

sentence that contains one main idea.
• This idea controls the content of the
entire essay.
• A thesis statement that contains sub
points also helps a reader know how the
essay will be organized.
A Thesis Checklist
 Checklist
– How well does the subject of your statement
capture the subject of your paper?
– What claim does your statement make about
your subject?
– What is the significance of the claim? How
does it answer “So what?” and convey your
purpose?
 Checklist
– How can the claim be limited or made more
specific? Does it state a single idea and clarify
the boundaries of the idea?
– How unified is the statement? How does each
word and phrase contribute to a single idea?
Drafting and Revising
 Revising Your Draft
• Step 1: Cut
– Cut passages that don’t contribute
to your purpose
– Look for excess baggage
– Make larger cuts first: sections,
chapters, pages
– Then make smaller cuts: paragraphs, sentences,
phrases, words

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The writing process - 22
All rights reserved.
 Revising Your Draft
• Step 2: Paste
– Examine what’s left after cutting
• Look for missing transitions and connecting
ideas
• Look for consistency within paragraphs
• Look for consistency between paragraphs
and sections
– Reorder your ideas logically
• Imaging cutting your paper up with scissors
and pasting passages down in a new order

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company.

The writing process - 23
All rights reserved.
 Revising Your Draft
• Step 3: Fix
– Examine individual words and phrases
– Rely on nouns and verbs
– Use the active voice
– Don’t be verbose or vague
– Define terms readers may not know

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company.

The writing process - 24
All rights reserved.
 Revising Your Draft
• Step 4: Prepare
– Know the required formats
• Margins
• Title page
• Notes and bibliographies

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company.

The writing process - 25
All rights reserved.
 Revising Your Draft
• Step 5: Proof
– Check spelling and grammar
– Look for:
• Clear thesis statement
• Guidepost sentences
• Supporting details
• Lean sentences
• Action verbs, specific nouns

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The writing process - 26
All rights reserved.
 Revision Tips
• Take a break from your draft before
attempting to revise.
• Read your draft out loud and listen to your
words.
• Imagine yourself as your reader.
• Look for consistent problem areas.
• Get feedback from peers.
• Get help from a tutor!
Using the comma with introductory
elements

Common Writing Mistake

#1
Principal uses of the comma
 Separate main clauses linked by a
coordinating conjunction

,
 The building is finished but it has no tenants.

l Set off most introductory elements

,
l Unfortunately the only tenant pulled out.
Principal uses of the comma
l Set off nonessential elements
l The empty building symbolizes a weak local
economy, which hurts everyone.
l Separate items in a series
l The city needs healthier businesses, new
schools, and improved housing.
Principal uses of the comma
• Separate coordinate adjectives
– A tall, sleek skyscraper is not needed.
VAGUE PRONOUN
REFERENCES
Vague Pronoun References
• Every pronoun you write should refer clearly and
unmistakably to ONE PARTICULAR noun. We call this
noun the antecedent.
• There are two common kinds of vague pronoun references:
• The first occurs when there is more than one word that the
pronoun might refer to.
– After putting the disk in the cabinet, Mary sold it.
• What did Mary sell, the cabinet or the disk?
Vague Pronoun References
• The second, when the reference is to a word
that is implied but not explicitly stated.
– After John cheated on the test by peeking at
Jim’s paper, he became very upset.
• Who is upset? John or Jim?
Descriptive Essay Introduction
 Assignment Review

• Virginia Woolf 1882-1941

• Virginia Woolf was an English writer, author and novelist and a
pioneer of modernism in English literature.
• Among her most famous work are novels To the Lighthouse,
Mrs. Dalloway and Orlando and an essay A Room of One's Own.
• She was an important figure in the Victorian literary society
and is regarded as one of the greatest modernist literary
personality of the twentieth century.
• She became the innovator of the English literature with her
experiment with the 'stream of consciousness' and broke the
mold with her highly experimental language denouncing the
traditional literary techniques.
 Question #2/Meaning and Idea

• On what details about the moth’s struggle

with death does Woolf focus? What
characteristics do they come to represent
for her?
She focuses on the intensity of its struggles to
cling to life. She sees it’s last gasp in which the
moth gets back on it’s feet. Once dead, Woolf sees
the moth’s dignified acceptance of it’s fate, death.
Simply put: life and the struggle to escape death.
 Writing the Descriptive Essay

  Description is used to make the reader feel,

to see, to hear, to taste, to smell what the
writer is describing.
• Imagery and the Senses:
– Sight
– Sound
– Touch
– Taste
– Smell
 Concrete Details
• Make descriptions clear and easy to see in
the imagination.
• Include only indispensable detail
• Make objects clear, sharp, and alive.
• Figurative devices: Comparisons such as
similes, metaphors, personification.
• Set a scene
• Provide insight
 Showing versus Telling
• Showing means drawing pictures,
• Telling means offering judgments.
• Sell the “sizzle” not the steak
• Showing is descriptive telling is informative
 Objective Description
• Objective descriptions are technical; the
details the writer uses are impersonal, at a
distance, independent of the perceiving
mind.  Scientific writing relies on objective
description. 
 Subjective Description
 
• Subjective description allows your
personal attitudes and impressions to
guide your selection of words to shape
your construction of images. 
• You want people to know how you felt
about the scene.
 Spatial Description
• When describing something (usually a place
– but does not have to be) you start at a
certain spot and work your way around the
room or place from location to location or
spatially
• In my bathroom the sink is on the left and
the tub is on the right…
 Figurative Language
• Metaphor
– Winter is a bear
• Simile
– Winter is like a bear
• Hyperbole
– Take the plank out of your own eye first.
• Personification
– The cloud rolled by thinking happy thoughts.
The Narrative Essay
 What is a Narrative Essay?
• It’s a story – it can be real or imagined
• It connects us to other people
• It can:
– raise a question
• What is truth?
• What would you do in this situation?
• How can you make a difference?
What is a Narrative Essay?
– provide an insight
• We each have something in common one with
another
• Sometimes it pays to be nice
– offer a moral.
• The root of evil is the love of money
• Tell the truth
• Don’t steal.
What is a Narrative Essay?
– offer a challenge.
• Change the world
• Help others now
• Feed the hungry
– provide a mirror for our own lives
• This sounds like me
• I can relate to what the protagonist is going
through
 What is a Narrative Essay?
• A narrative is a story
• A narrative essay is a story that has a
specific point
– A narrative essay strives to teach a lesson or
– A narrative essay strives to make a specific
point
– A narrative essay is not a diary entry – the
story is linked to the purpose of the essay
How is the Narrative Essay written?

• Often written in 1st person – “I or we” – because it

is based on a personal story
• Can also be written in 3rd person (“they”)
• Can never be written in 2nd person (you)
• Has specific sensory details to get the reader
hooked on the story
• Is usually developed in chronological order
• Uses specific verbs to help paint a picture and
draw in the reader
 Time Order
• Most narratives are written chronologically
– this happened, then this, then this…
• Can be written “medias res” – in the midst of
things – where readers find themselves in
the heat of an event
• Flashbacks are used by skillful writers –
may confuse the reader – not recommended
for beginning writers
 Kinds of Narratives
The Narrative Summary

• Covers large segment of time

• Writers of history, memoirs, biography use
this
• Raymond Carver uses it in “My Father’s Life”
 Kinds of Narratives
The Narrative Moment

• Covers a limited time frame

• All details are explored for an intense,
comprehensive view of a flash of time
 Assignment Review
• Raymond Carver
• (May 25, 1938 – August 2,
1988) was an American short
story writer and poet. Carver
is considered a major
American writer of the late
20th century and also a major
force in the revitalization of
the short story in the 1980s.
 “My Father’s Life”
• Raymond Carver’s “My Father’s Life”, Page
81 in Great Writing
• (Meaning) #3
– Trace the geographic movement of Carver’s
father
• (Language) #2
– What is the use of dialogue in this essay? How
does it enhance the narration?
 The Story Elements
• Setting
– The time and place of the story
• Characters
– Who are the people in this story?
• Plot
– The sequence of events – the action in the story
• Exposition
– The background of the story and its characters
 The Story Elements
• Conflict
– The problem or problems to be solved in the
story
• Climax
– The most exciting part – the major turning point
of the story
• Resolution
– The end of the story – the wrapping up of loose
ends
 7 Classic Plots
1.The Quest
–a central protagonist strives to meet an all important and often far off goal.
–The Lord of the Rings, Apocalypse Now, Raiders of the Lost Ark

2.Voyage and Return

–also based around a journey, as the hero is transported to another world and then
back again
–Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver's Travels, Back to the Future, the Wizard of Oz.

3.Rebirth
–the protagonist is cast under a dark spell either instigated by himself or an outside
force. The heroes liberation is achieved by the actions of other good forces.
–A Christmas Carol, Beauty and the Beast.
 7 Classic Plots
4.Comedy
–the characters are thrown into a state of confusion, darkness and
bewilderment where resolution can only come when these constricting
factors have been played out to their extremes.
–All’s Well That Ends Well, When Harry Met Sally, Some Like It Hot.

5. Tragedy
–an individual goes through a series of actions and decisions that unwittingly
brings about their own downfall.
–Tragedy are Hamlet. Carlito’s Way, Macbeth, Oedipus the King.
 7 Classic Plots
6.Overcoming the Monster
–the hero/heroes must overcome a dark evil creature/person/entity that has exerted an evil destructive force over a place, persons or people.
–The Silence of the Lambs, Dracula, Jaws, Hansel and Gretel.

7. Rags to Riches
• In Rags to Riches plots the central character is seemingly plucked from nothing to greatness where he/she is very often rich and of immense status. In
this story type the hero very often gets quick success which is swiftly taken away from him/her. In order for him/her to return to this “rich” state the
protagonist must very often defeat a foe of some kind.
• Aladdin, Cinderella, Great Expectations.
 Maya Angelou
• “Graduation”