Draft Letter for College Essay/Personal Narrative & 5 Author Questions

Goals for today's class:

• Opening Moment: Joe N
• 5 Author Questions--due today
• Silent Conversation: http://nyti.ms/1fPUfhK
• Watch the above video and then respond to one of the two following questions in comment on THIS POST!
• HOW does this video show that sometimes the facts can get lost in sensational news stories?
• HOW does this video show how sometimes special interest groups can distort the facts of an event to further their own goals?

Draft Letter Assignment: College Essay/Personal Narrative

Overview: It’s never a good feeling to get a paper back only to be criticized for something you already know isn’t going well, or worse, for something that you thought was pretty great. Your draft letter will give you the opportunity to tell your reader(s) what you think about your piece before it’s evaluated. As a teacher, it’s easier for me to help you improve when I know what you think about a particular assignment!  Please use reasons and examples to support your judgements- try to incorporate at least one direct quote from your writing piece.

Task: Write a letter addressed to your reader (today...that's me!) that reflects on several aspects of your writing. Here are some reflection questions to consider examining in your letter:

• What is your favorite part of this particular piece and why?
• Are there any weaknesses you see in this piece? Tell me about them.
• What techniques did you try which differed from your regular process?
• How does this piece compare to other pieces you have written?
• What difficulties did you encounter when creating this piece and why?
• What really worked in this piece? Why did it seem to work well?
• What’s one thing you would like to do to improve this piece, if only you knew how to do it?
• What do you think is the one thing a reader is most likely to take away from your piece?

You are free to respond to as many or as few of these as you wish. The goal is to think about your writing process and also evaluate what worked well and what didn’t.

Length: 350-500 words

Location: At the bottom of the page of your College Essay/Personal Narrative in GoogleDoc.

Format: Follow letter conventions (date, greeting, body, closing, and signature)

This will count for one participation assignment and will be graded using the homework rubric.