Illustrative/Example Essay (Draft) Assignment Instructions
For this assignment, you will work through the prewriting and drafting stages of your writing process in an illustration/example essay.
Illustration/Example Essay Prompt
Choose one of the following statements and agree or disagree with it in an essay developed by using multiple and extended examples. The statement you decide on should concern a topic you care about so that the examples are a means of communicating an idea; not an end in themselves.
Family
- In happy families, talk is the main activity.
- Grandparents relate more closely to grandchildren than to their children.
- Sooner or later, children take on the personalities of their parents.
Behavior and Personality
- Rudeness is on the rise.
- Gestures and facial expressions often communicate what words cannot say.
- Our natural surroundings when we are growing up contribute to our happiness or unhappiness as adults.
Education
- The best courses are the difficult ones.
- Students at schools with enforced dress codes behave better than students at schools without such codes.
Politics and Social Issues
- Drug and alcohol addiction does not happen just to “bad” people.
Media and Culture
- The Internet divides people instead of connecting them.
- Good art can be ugly.
- A craze or fad reveals something about the culture it arises in.
- The best rock musicians treat social and political issues in their songs.
Rules for Living
- Lying may be justified by the circumstances.
- Friends are people you can’t always trust.
Writing Your Illustration/Example Essay
Prewriting
To get started writing your essay:
- Review What is an Essay?
- Take time to review possible subjects
- Use prewriting to help you narrow your topic to one experience.
Drafting
When drafting your essay:
- Develop an enticing title.
- Use the introduction to pull the reader into your singular experience by introducing the problematic situation.
- Avoid addressing the assignment directly. (Don’t write, “I am going to write about my most significant experience”—this takes the fun out of reading the work!)
- Think of things said at the moment this experience started for you—perhaps use a quote, or an interesting part of the experience that will grab the reader.
- Let the essay reflect your own voice. (Is your voice serious? Humorous? Matter-of-fact?)
- Try to organize the essay in a way that may capture the reader by mixing multiple and extended examples, but don’t string the reader along too much with “next, next, next.”
- To avoid just telling what happens. SHOW your reader what happened describing vivid examples and incorporating testimony. Make sure you take time to reflect on why this experience is significant.
Assignment Instructions
- Review the grading rubric as listed on the following page.
- Choose a writing prompt as listed above page.
- Create a prewriting in the style of your choice for the prompt. Review the prewriting videos on the My Writing Process: Prewriting and Draft page if needed.
- Develop a draft essay according to the following formatting guidelines: (Papers submitted that do not meet these formatting requirements will be returned to you ungraded)
- Minimum of 3 typed, double-spaced pages (about 600–750 words), Times New Roman, 12 pt font size
- MLA formatting (see the MLA Format page as needed)
- Submitted as either a .doc, .docx, .rtf file with your first and last name in the file name.
- Submit your prewriting and draft as a single file upload.
Requirements
Be sure to:
- Agree or disagree with the prompt statement by using multiple and extended examples
- Decide on something you care about so that the narration is a means of communicating an idea
- Develop an enticing title
- Use the introduction to establish the situation the essay will address
- Avoid addressing the assignment directly. (Don’t write “I am going to write about…” – this takes the fun out of reading the work!)
- Let the essay reflect your own voice (Is your voice serious? Humorous? Matter-of-fact?)
- Avoid “telling” your reader about what happened. Instead, “show” what happens using active verbs and/or concrete and descriptive nouns.
Note: If you developed your prewriting by hand on paper, scan or take a picture of your prewriting, load the image onto your computer, and then insert the image on a separate page after your draft.
This is the reading material for Illustrative/Example Essays. Make sure you read the essays within the lesson below.
Note: This section is not included in the readings within the .PDF version of the textbook. We are providing a separate .PDF file for the Illustration Example Essay Introduction
should you want to print this section.
- “She’s Your Basic L.O.L. in N.A.D.” by Perri Klass (Note: Item will open in a new window)
- “April & Paris” by David Sedaris (Note: Item will open in a new window)
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