STYLE UNIT ESSAYS
All essays are to meet the length
requirement of 700-1000 words and to conform to MLA paper format
requirements. Place the essay’s word
count beneath the date in the essay’s heading.
I will not collect rough drafts or notes, only the final drafts of
essays. Our goal will be to create five
essays, three of a personal nature and two that are responses to practice AP
Language and Composition/Literature essays exams. Students will turn in all five essays in
their final form at the end of the unit.
Look for this due date on the class web site.
All
personal essays should be rich in stylistic achievement, including appropriate
diction, syntactical strategies and all other stylistic elements we have
studied. The essays should also have a
unifying element, possibly a phrase, image or other device. Organizing the essay by rhetorical modes will
help create a full picture of the essay’s subject. There is no formula for this essay; the
writer must take risks and create a unique essay, revealing that he is able to
think for himself about a subject.
Mock
AP essays should conform to the expository academic writing we have done thus
far in the class. In this way students
create standard body paragraphs with topic sentences and a depth of evidence
and analysis of the literature on the exam.
Essay
#1: The writer is to consider the role that writing, either academic and/or
personal, has played in his life.
Considering the past, present and future may add depth to the
essay. The writer’s purpose is to make
clear to the reader what the writer thinks and feels about writing.
Essay #2: The writer visits a location and observes what occurs there, taking notes on the details and sensory images in this location. As with the model essay “High Anxiety” that I passed out to the class, the essay’s movement begins in the physical location and slowly moves to a mental awareness, understanding or epiphany that the writer gains by reflecting on what happens in the location. The idea is that if we stop and carefully examine our lives we will see meaning in them that we previously never took the time to create. Past locations students have chosen have been Starbucks, libraries, parks, malls and plazas and sporting or cultural events.
Essay
#3: The writer will “shop” for a quote from our classroom walls and the
“Meaning of Life” poster. This quote
will become the basis for an essay that contemplates the meaning of the quote,
applying it to the writer’s life and people in general.
Essay
#4: This is our first mock AP essay prompt.
The writer will create an essay that creates a comparative stylistic
analysis based on two passages about Native Americans.
Essay
#5: As with essay #4, the essay will compare two poems. Both poems deal with Helen of