Paper details:Description: Essay #1 Assignment

Format: –12 Point Font
–Times New Roman Style
–Double-Spaced
–Correct Heading w/ a Header at the top of each page
–One Inch Margins All Around
— No Cover Pages or Special Folders
–PROPER MLA FORMAT IN ALL AREAS (See SMHB pp. 442-450)

Length: Must be at least 2 full pages long and no more than 4 pages.

Assignment: In a well-developed, organized, and grammatically correct essay, write an essay describing a person, or a place, or a physical thing that is very important to you and that you have first-hand experience with (a person you personally know, a place you’ve been, a physical thing you’ve owned). Be sure that you are writing a descriptive essay that only focuses on describing the subject you have chosen from above and communicating one central or overriding idea about the subject, not a narrative that merely tells a story about an experience you’ve had that involves multiple people, places, things, and events.
Try and describe the topic from the perspective of an anonymous, casual observer. Disconnect yourself and your personal experiences from the topic—describe your topic from what you know from experience without directly revealing that it is from your experience.
Think of it this way: if a perfect stranger were to visit the place you are writing about, observe the thing you are writing about, or spend a few hours around the person you are writing about, what ONE main and specific trait, emotion, or idea would most likely stand out the most and seem to define, embody, or represent the topic more than anything else and why? This is the perspective from which the paper should be written.
Now, if you feel like it is impossible for you to disconnect yourself, your experiences, and your memories from the topic and the essay without totally changing the direction of your paper and your thesis, you may want to consider changing your topic or at the least try your best to make the place, person, or thing your thesis focuses on the PRIMARY focal point and then use tidbits from multiple experiences or memories to highlight the focal point. In other words, do not write a narrative that focuses on ONE long and drawn out experience involving detailed imagery, description, dialogue, etc. (making the reader feel as if he or she is witnessing the experience in real time), but rather write a descriptive essay that focuses primarily on describing ONE place, or ONE person, or ONE thing and then gives just a few details concerning not just one but multiple experiences or memories that involve the topic in order to support and prove the thesis.
Remember that description must appeal to the senses: taste, touch sound, sight, smell. While you need not appeal to every sense in your essay, be sure to give the reader enough description so that he/she can be a part of your topic’s development. You may certainly use figurative language in your descriptions – simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, etc. In any case, be aware of your audience and your tone. Your choice of words may greatly influence your reader’s impression of your topic. Be careful to present your topic as you would like it to be interpreted.
Make sure your essay has a point, too, that it is not just three pages of drivel about how gorgeous your cat Fluffy is. Ask yourself questions before you write your essay: Why is it important to you to write about Fluffy? What one main idea does Fluffy represent to you? What overriding emotion do you feel inside when you are around Fluffy? What emotion or defining characteristic/trait defines Fluffy the most among all other emotions and all her other traits? Try to narrow everything down to just one main idea. Be sure you’re not talking about every single emotion that you feel while around your subject or every emotion it represents or every single trait your subject has. Focus only on the one overriding emotion it evokes or the one defining trait it has among all the others and then relate everything you describe about the subject to that one main emotion, trait, or idea.
The thesis for this descriptive essay assignment should be ONE, and only ONE, sentence that states what the ONE main idea, emotion, or trait is that you associate with the topic (person, place, or thing) that you have chosen. Tell me what one main idea, emotion, or trait really seems to define your topic, or to be embodied or represented by your topic, the most beyond all the others.
Sometimes narrowing everything down to just one main idea may seem difficult at first since there are probably lots and lots of ideas that you associate with your topic. But there is usually one idea, emotion, or trait that seems to stand out the most. If you had to put your finger on just one idea that is the most significant idea among all the others related to your topic, which one would that be? The answer to that question is what your thesis should be focused on.
So try answering that question, and then try to compose a thesis sentence that states the answer. Also, try to make the thesis communicate this idea in as straightforward and concise of a way as possible. One way to help the sentence become as explicit and straightforward as possible is to use a word or phrase like “embodies,” “represents,” or “is the very definition of.” In other words, try to word the thesis similar to this:

____________________ (represents, embodies, is the very definition of) ___________.

Put the person, place, or thing you chose in the first blank and the one main trait, emotion, or idea that the topic represents the most beyond all others in the second blank.
An example of a good topic would be to choose your favorite place to go to when you want to relax and get away from it all. Maybe this place is a cozy corner in your room or a little nook and cranny in your back yard, a place with a hammock stretched under the shade between two trees. Once you have chosen the object of your description (a person, place, or thing), then think about the one central idea that you want to make about that object. Maybe you decide that this favorite place represents the central idea of peace and tranquility to you. Thus all the descriptive details you would include at that point would be related to the point that this place represents peace and tranquility. Everything you say about the colors of the trees, leaves, grass, and flowers, the feel of the soft breeze, and warmth of the sun from this spot in the backyard would somehow be related to your narrative point, that this place represents peace and tranquility. Thus these are the kinds of things I want to see in your essays—lots of description, but description that is used to support a point.
Remember, descriptive essays are very informal, creative essays that deal with very abstract, poignant concepts. Saying that my father’s old work boots represent to me the very definition of strength, ruggedness, and hard work, or that the place I sit in my backyard in a hammock under a tree is the very embodiment to me of peace and serenity, or that my son to me is more than anything else a representation of unconditional love and innocence are all the kinds of topics and thesis statements I am looking for in this essay. Make sure your thesis deals with something abstract, profound, and poignant like the ones above. Writing about how the iPod is the best music player for several different reasons or how Disney World is the best vacation spot for several reasons are all topics that would be inappropriate for a descriptive essay because they don’t deal with the kind of abstract, profound, and poignant concepts that I am looking for.
Also, once you send me your thesis and get it approved, make sure you put the approved thesis, in the exact same way it was written when I approved it, in your essay somewhere. Probably the best place to put the thesis for this descriptive essay is as the last sentence at the end of the introduction paragraph.
Finally, please do not use any kind of outside, printed sources for this essay. Everything you discuss should be based only on what you know from first-hand experience or from common knowledge; but if you do still choose to look at outside sources, make very sure you properly document them using MLA style, which we will not study until essay #3. Failure to document published sources that are in any way used, quoted, or paraphrased from in an essay is plagiarism! Students found guilty of plagiarism will be automatically dropped from this class with an F for scholastic dishonesty. Please e-mail me with any questions.