brainstorming activityPrewriting/Invention for Essay 2:
Please complete the following planning/brainstorming activity for Essay 2. Your responses to the following may be typed or handwritten and must be submitted at the start of the period on Thursday, 9/29.
1. Topic/Subject Matter (must be approved by instructor):
2. Purpose:
3. Audience:
a. Who are your readers likely to be?
b. What do they already know about your subject?
c. Are they likely to be interested in the subject, or related subjects? If not, how could you interest them?
d. What would be useful for them to know about your subjectperhaps that could relate to their life?
4. What strategies do you think youll employ in explaining your concept? (e.g. defining key terms, classifying or grouping together related material, comparing and contrasting, narrating anecdotes or processes, illustrating with examples, visuals, or lists of facts and details, reporting established causes and effects, etc.)
5. Outline your draft here:
6. Write your introduction here:
7. Write your thesis here:*Feel free to include any other notes/brainstorming with this activity.Overview: For our second major essay assignment, you are asked to explain a concept, making use of the explanatory strategies as seen in chapter 4 of our text.Plan an essay that is 3-4 pages, typed. You do not need a title page; instead, type your name, your teachers name, course name, and date in the upper left-hand corner of the first page of your essay. Also, include a title on the first page. Be sure to double space everything and have one-inch margins all the way around. Dont forget your header (MLA format). As you work through your writing process, keep all of your notes and drafts. You will turn these in to me prior to the final paper submission.A Way to Proceed: The first step towards completion of this essay will be to decide on your topic. Since you will be writing from your own personal experience and knowledge base, think about your areas of expertise, and consider how best to convey your knowledge. Then, you will need to consider your rhetorical situation (purpose, audience, genre, etc.) to ensure successful completion of this writing project.As discussed at length in class, a concept is a term that does not easily lend itself to definition. A concept explanation, then, can be considered a sort of extended definition essay. Concepts may be characterized a values, ideas, conditions, theories, or even technical terms that insiders use and that anyone who wants to become part of the conversation needs to learn (119). For a list of some sample concepts, please see page 151.How can a concept be explained, then? According to our text, Writers of essays explaining a concept typically present information using a number of different strategies, such as the following: defining key terms, classifying or grouping together related material, comparing and contrasting, narrating anecdotes or processes, illustrating with examples, visuals, or lists of facts and details, [and] reporting established causes and effects (123).In terms of organizing an essay of this nature, your text further notes that [e]ffective concept explanations have to be readable, and writers may use the following strategies in developing a readable plan for their essays:
Divide the information into clearly distinguishable topics
Forecast the topics via a thesis statement, early on
Present the topics in a logical order
Give readers cues or road signs to guide them, such as topic sentences, transitions, and summaries (122).As you write your concept explanation, your primary purpose will be to inform or teach your readers by fully explaining the concept, defining jargon or technical terms as you move along. While the primary purpose is to inform, however, your paper should not bore the reader. With this in mind, part of your purpose then becomes to engage readers interest in your chosen topic.As for your readership, you should anticipate that your audience will be unfamiliar with the concept, so the essay will serve as an introduction. At the same time, again, you should assume that the readers may not be especially interested in the concept, so your job, then, becomes to engage their interest.Research: It is important to note that for this essay, you WILL NOT use any outside source materials. Directly or indirectly using any outside sources from the internet or elsewhere will be classified as plagiarism and will lead to a 0% for this paper. As such, it is necessary to pick a topic about which you are already well-informed.I will, however, allow the use of graphics (small pictures that are found on the web, are hand drawn, or are taken with a digital camera or phone) to aid in the explanation of your concept. We will discuss how to properly format and cite these graphics in class, so be sure you are present for all class sessions so you will not be penalized for improper use of visuals.Grading: Your essays will be evaluated in the following areas: Content, Organization, Style, and Grammar, Punctuation, Mechanics, etc. The more we write and learn, the more I expect from you in each area.Some Topics from Past Semesters:
The American Dream
Healthy Lifestyle
Prostate Cancer
Jealousy
Entrepreneurship
Feminism
Golf
Anime
Food Deserts
Gender Roles
Self-Hate in the Black Community
Self-Love
God
Racism
Fibromyalgia
Domestic Violence/Abuse
Healthy Relationships
Hip Hop
Customer Service
The Ripple Effect
Styles of Policing
Multiple Sclerosis
90s Rock Music
Love
Soccer
School-to-Prison Pipeline
Concepts of Cooking
Body Image
Schizophrenia
Scleroderma
Diabetes
Animal Behavior
Attention Deficit Disorder
Sarcoidosis
Concussion
Single-Parent Families
Soulmate
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Success
Basketball
Superstitions