Prewriting: After reading closely Steinbach's "The Miss Dennis School of Writing," make a list of your most memorable mentors. Include coaches and teachers. Do some real brainstorming and spend some time making a scratch outline or writing a zero draft. Then follow the instructions below taken from TNS (36).
"Write a profile—a description of a person that not only tells but shows a piece of that person's life story—of one of your favorite (or most despised) teachers or coaches. Try to give your reader a clear sense of what that person looks like; of what he or she wears, says, and does; and of the dominant impression he or she makes on others. Be sure to show how you interact with that person and what he or she has (or has not) taught you."
Option #2
Prewriting and Drafting:After reading closely all the essays in Chapter Two of TNS, spend some time listing the most critical decisions you've made in your life and when and how you made them. Reread "None of This Is Fair" by Richard Rodriquez in TNS. Notice that he positions his thesis as the first sentence of his first paragraph. Everything else comes out of that single sentence. Make sure you have such a sentence in your first draft. In fact, use your prewriting time to come up with a good lead sentence that will allow you to focus and keep your writing on task and to the point.
"Write a personal narrative about your internal struggle to make some important decision in your life. Lead up to and then focus sharply on the moment of clearity when your mind was made up and you suddenly knew what you were going to do or say or be."
Notes: Regardless of which option you choose, your final draft will need a thesis or controling idea. I hope you will also include dialogue in your essay. Keep in mind, too, that you do not need to be the center of your own essay. For example, you might choose option two and write an essay that focuses on the relationship between a teacher or coach and another person. Description and narrative go together. No matter which option you choose, concentrate on telling a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. (You can, of course, begin at the end. . .or in the middle.) As for length,you can judge length by the sample essays in our text. Concentrate on telling the story. Give us the truth. Dramatize, dramatize, dramatize. Write scenes. Revise, revise, revise, revise.
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