Midterm Review

English `150
English 150 Midterm
The Writing Process 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
r od AY
The uct
ion
s is S
t at
B od em
yP ent
ara
gra
B od ph
#1
yP
ara
gra
B od ph
#2
yP
ara
gra
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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
Checklist
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
•

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 22

 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
Copyright © Houghton passages
Mifflin Company. Alldown in a
rights reserved. 23
 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. All rights reserved. 24

 Revising Your Draft
• Step 4: Prepare
– Know the required formats
• Margins
• Title page
• Notes and bibliographies

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 25

 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

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 26

 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.
●Set off most introductory elements

●Unfortunately , the only tenant pulled

out.
Principal uses of the comma
●Set off nonessential elements
●The empty building symbolizes a
weak local economy, which hurts
everyone.
●Separate items in a series

●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
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?
• S h e fo cu se s o n th e in te n sity o f its
stru g g le s to clin g to life . S h e se e s it’ s la st
g a sp in w h ich th e m o th g e ts b a ck o n it’ s
fe e t. O n ce d e a d , W o o lf se e s th e m o th ’ s
d ig n ifie d a cce p ta n ce o f it’ s fa te , d e a th .
S im p ly p u t: life a n d th e stru g g le to e sca p e
d e a th .
 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
[Link] 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

[Link] 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.
 7 Classic Plots
[Link]
– 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.

[Link]
– an individual goes through a series of actions
and decisions that unwittingly brings about
their own downfall.
 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.

–
8. Rags to Riches
• In Rags to Riches plots the central character is seemingly
plucked from nothing to greatness where he/she
 Maya Angelou
• “Graduation”