Blog Assignment - Monday, June 18, 2012.
This assignment will require that you write 250-500 words and then post your response to this blog. These posts will be graded so I suggest you write your response using Microsoft word and cut and paste your response into the blog. Also, feel free to write responses to other comments, as well as the prompt.
For this assignment I would like you to write a brief process analysis about your personal essay.
A process analysis essay explains a series of events. Often process analysis essays are written chronologically so that readers can perform a set of steps. To write a process analysis essay, you need to understand the steps involved in a process, how they relate to one another and how they lead to the end result. The steps below will help you in developing and writing a process analysis essay that effectively and accurately explains your writing process to your reader.
For this assignment, you will need to think about your writing process for the personal essay, and explain the steps you took to write your essay from start to finish. Since you only have 250-500 words I recommend focusing on the most important steps in your process. Also, try to explain not only what steps you took, but how they relate to each other, and build upon one another to form your writing process.
Some tips to writing a good process analysis essay:
- Be sure to include all steps and arrange them in sequence.
- Explain why each step is necessary, and include warnings where appropriate.
- Define any terms that your readers may not be familiar with.
- Offer clear descriptions of any tools or materials needed to carry out the process.
- Provide your readers with a way of determining whether or not the process has been carried out successfully.
This blog assignment is due by 12 am (midnight) Monday, June 18, 2012. Please include your first and last name in your blog post.
You will need to sign into your Google account or create a Google Account to post your comment to the blog. To create a Google account please follow the directions on this link:
https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount
When I first began to write my essay, I thought it was going to be difficult. But the great thing about about a “personal narrative” is that it is something you are familiar with. I began my venture by brainstorming ideas and jotting down main points I wanted to discuss in my essay. Then, I began to free write. Once I finished, I made sure I discussed all the points I wanted to discuss in the correct order. I did much revising and switched things around to make sure it flowed well.
ReplyDeleteI started my paper with an introduction that covered a broad topic. I stated how cursing is apparent in society. This is a commonplace (an idea or thing that most people can relate with). Once I was done talking about cursing, I gave a glimpse of what my story was about. I then began to tell the story by adding humor and sensory images. I was aiming more at getting the audience to feel a specific emotion while they read my paper. The tone varied from humorous to serious. I then reflected on how I learned that cursing was bad NOT because I was punished, but for a deeper reason with more meaning.
I wanted my paper to flow as if I was narrated for a film. I even said allowed what I was typing to see if it sounded right. I also wanted to make my audience laugh with scenarios they could relate with. My first intention wasn't to add a twist at the end, but as I began to conclude my essay I felt it with be a nice touch to keep the audience from loosing interest.
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ReplyDeleteWhen I began to write my personal essay I found it easy to write my thoughts down on paper, however it was difficult to put them in an organized fashion. I first brainstormed all of my ideas and then wrote them all down on paper. Afterwards, I organized all of my ideas in logical order from start to finish. Being that this was supposed to be a personal essay I made sure to write with a lot of emotion to make the reader feel as if I was right next to him/her reading the paper out loud. I did this by setting the tone as a reflective one, where I reminisced about my past when I was a child while at the same time being as descriptive as possible.
ReplyDeleteI decided to start off my introduction with descriptive observations, personification, and a reflective tone. Using these three tools I was able to create a real environment for the reader as soon as she or he started reading. I described the house that everyone was afraid of when I was a child, using tools such as personification and imagery. This way the reader can picture the house in their mind and feel more attached to the story. I then began to describe the setting to the story including the time and location of the place. The story broadens by the second paragraph giving more information to the reader, thus causing him or her to further understand what exactly is going on. By the third paragraph the reader is well aware of what is going on in this childhood experience of mine.
I continued to write in first person throughout the entire essay because I wanted to make sure the reader experienced this moment through my eyes. Near the end I gave an inside look to what happened after that moment in my past in order to not leave the reader with any questions.
-Arnold R.
When I started to write my personal essay I had a lot of topics to choose from, so I wrote a list of the topics I felt would make an interesting story and I narrowed it down to two. One of those stories being about my first varsity game and the other being about the death of my father. I decided to write about my first varsity game because the death of my father is still a very tender subject. I began to get my thoughts together with brainstorming and free writing. I also visited my high school and the practice field. The visit helped bring back so many memories and emotions that I could put in my paper; the visit was a good idea to bring back ideas to write about. I also debated on how I wanted to write my essay; I debated on a flashback style or writing from the beginning normally. I decided to use the flashback method because it would add a lot of intensity, and get the reader involved immediately. Once I chose my style of writing I began to free write again this time I wrote more and added as many emotions I remembered feeling. This method helped me a lot because most of the emotions and usage of words I used in my free write I end up putting in the story; my writing process in mainly a lot of free writing and gathering my thoughts than I write it all on the paper for my first draft. Then I write at least three to four my drafts for my final draft.
ReplyDeleteWalter Bowie
English 1301
When I started my essay I sat down and thought about the main information that would help build the foundation of my personal essay. Firstly I started out by using the some of the information in class of the people that are involved. Secondly I thought deeply about the introduction and how I can grab the reader’s interest by using the attention grabbing strategy by opening up with a question. Thirdly, I thought of a thesis as a controlling idea that would tell the reader what my whole essay was going to talk about; all this information started out broad which was the start of my keyhole strategy. Fourthly, I started to narrow my information in by explaining to the reader how it all started in the second paragraph. The third paragraph reflected and told the author how many obstacles and problems the past contained and how I overcame them with help; and how I was changed by it. In that third paragraph I went deeper into my past to creating a sense of urgency and suspense for the reader to continue to read the essay. As I went on I tried to include concrete and abstract details so I can make the essay look more realistic and professional, after I had accomplished that I started to narrow my way out by telling the reader how much this experience meant to me as an individual. I then started to tell the reader how the past experience affected my future in a good way by creating a good logical way for me to attack worldly problems and obstacles.
ReplyDeleteClaudia Caceres
ReplyDeleteBefore I began my essay, I free wrote a lot. I knew that once I had my topic, everything would come to mind. So I began to free write and that’s where the emotions and feelings came in. After I had a good amount of details, I began to write my essay, I had very much difficulty on how I wanted to start the introduction. I was thinking of a way that I could grab my readers’ attention and interest them into keep on reading. I finally came up with a good introduction that started off with dialogue. The dialogue introduces you to the characters of my story. Once that was done, I began to get specific and conveyed my story. I included many details and figurative language to describe the pain and sadness I had. Knowing this is a personal essay, I tried to let out my feelings so that the readers would feel like they were at my side. I remembered to include good use of details and imagery so my reader could imagine where I was and how I felt. The story lingers and I begin to tell the part where this situation turned my life around. Once I get to this part, my readers begin to understand how this situation affected me and made me who I am today. At the end, I begin to think of what kind of way to conclude my story. I finally came up with one that I knew would convince my readers of the story they had just read.
When I started to write my essay, I didn’t know what to write. So I began to brainstorm. I created a bubble map and put the topic of the assignment and wrote down ideas on the outer bubbles. When I was done, I picked the most topic that affected my life and it was my experience when I first felt I was responsible. I needed more information, so when we did the “Point of Contact” I interviewed my family since they were in my story. Then I began to write my essay. Based on what I learned in class, I created an attention getter, to grab the reader’s attention. Then it followed with a thesis, about what I’m going to talk about in the essay. After that, I went to the next paragraph and started my story. First, I began my essay with an introduction. Abstract and concrete details help my paper flow better, which gives more details and want the reader to read more. Second, I began to explain what happen in my story, going into more detail. Third, I continued writing down the details that led to the climax, the emotion and highest level of change in my story. Then, I wrote down my result of how I changed based on my experience. And finally my conclusion, the outcome of my change and based on my experience. Using these techniques; abstract and concrete details, attention getter, thesis, steps of a process, personality, and character, formulates my essay and make it unique to everyone.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was assigned my personal essay, I had to think about what event had impacted my life the most. I also had to make sure that I could write at least 750 words from it. My personal essay required me to do a little bit of research on a health condition. When I finally figured out what I was going to write about, I had to think about how I was going to write the essay in chronologically order, which is what I usually do for every essay I write. When I wrote my first draft, I free wrote a lot, and wrote whatever came to mind. I made sure to write a lot and every detail I could think of. I re-read the essay about three times and ended up deleting many sentences and including a few parts. I typed my second draft and my whole first draft was completely revised. As I was typing, I fixed many grammatical and sentence structure errors. I realized that I wrote too much so I paraphrased a few parts. I realized I had written a few stuff that would confuse the reader so I fixed it or deleted it. Some parts also didn’t go with the essay and was just too much detail so I had to erase it. When my peers revised it and gave me feedback I still had a few more grammatical and sentence structure errors that confused the reader, so I had to fix it. I realized that I also needed a title. I had watched a movie that tied along with my main idea, so that inspired and influenced me to write my title.
ReplyDeleteJulio Sanchez
My first step in the process of writing my personal analysis essay was brainstorming. For me coming up with ideas on what I want to write about is one of the most difficult things for me because there are so many things in my life that helped shape who I am. So first I came up three good scenarios then I picked the best of those three. I chose to write about my Christmas experience because I felt it would be the easiest for me to write about, and because I felt many people would be able to relate to the moral of the story. Once I decided what I wanted to write about I did a little free-writing just to see how much I could come up with in fifteen minutes. After a short time of free-writing and jotting down ideas I had a good jumping off point, so next I decided to make an outline to try and put the ideas I wrote down in chronological order. After creating an outline and arranging the ideas I already had I realized that everything I had would only be enough for the body and the conclusion. This is usually the case for me because when I write the introduction is usually the part that takes the longest. So instead of coming up with the introduction first I decided to write the body(the story) and the conclusion(my reflection) and save the introduction for last. When creating the body I tried to make sure that I described the setting accurately but when we read our essays in class I realized that I needed to use a few more details. Also I tried to explain the story in a way that would make it easy for the reader to follow along without being confused. The free-writing and the outline made this process a lot easier for me because I already knew what I wanted to write and in what order I wanted to write it in. After I wrote the body then I wrote the conclusion which was pretty easy because it basically summed up the lesson I learned from the events in the body. I tried to make the lesson I learned very clear and also show how it has shaped my perspective even today. Once I was done with the conclusion I went back and began to work on my introduction. After thinking about it for a while I decided to start by trying to establish common place by making a general statement about Christmas that everyone could identify with. After I got past that first sentence the rest of the introduction came pretty easily. My goal with the introduction was to grab the readers attention, and to create foreshadowing by letting the reader know in the introduction that something was about to happen that would forever change my perspective on Christmas.
ReplyDeleteOghor Okparavero
ReplyDelete2684397
My Experience Writing My Personal Essay
Entering the class, I could remember how stunned I was when I was told I was going to be writing a personal essay. A personal essay! Where do I start from, how, and what do I write, I couldn't help but wonder as I listened quietly and attentively to my instructor as he explain the process and procedure with which to write this personal essay.
By the end of the class, I had understood where, what and how to start my essay. The class started with a review of an essay from our text book (The Composition Of everyday life) titled "The Thrill Of Victory..The Agony Of Parents" written by Schwind-Pawlak, here we learn how a personal essay looks like and what is expected from us as writers.
As writers, we need to have a controlling idea and ensure we follow it, make sure our essay is interesting and easy to digest by the reader, we need to find a moment of reflection since it is a personal essay, proper organization, our style or pattern of writing, our tone, the use of abstract and contract and ensure you don't write out of context.
Another challenging part, was finding a topic, we were thought different method one of which was brainstorming, another was highlighting, further more, we did an "invention exercise" we reflect on various question, example, what event was it, how did it change or affected us, what was the significance to mention a few, we also had different activities to carry out, I for one, choose calling my elder brother as my contact point and reflection from my past, as I spoke with my brother, I realize how much history we shared, how it felt like growing up with him, my sister and my mom who all by herself struggled to raise us, I remembered the frustration of mom, her expectations, her parenting style, her mistakes, her good and poor judgement and right there it hit me what I needed to write about, it was right there I found my topic. I titled it "... Single Parents...".
My controlling idea was the challenges faced by single parents, my tone was bitter-sweet (cold and emotional), my style of writing was descriptive and narrative, as it is a personal essay, the moment which I reflected on was how bitter I was as a child and how hurt I felt, my grievance towards my mom and elder brother, how unfairly I thought I was treated and the lesson I learned from the experience. With this piece of information I got, I began my essay, and as I wrote more idea came, the best 50 (fifty) minute of my life. I was done.
Was it perfect? No!, but it was a rough draft, and we went through it in class, discussed the errors, how to improve on the quality of the essay (sentence structure, paragraph, connection to mention but a few), and how to connect with the audience, I went back home that day, and I rewrote the essay, taking note of every mistakes and correction. This is the process of how my personal essay was written and how it felt like.
Freddy McGowan
ReplyDeleteAs I sat down to start writing my personal essay, the first thing I had to decide was which event in my life I was going to talk about. After sinking deep into memories and reminiscing on the past, allowing myself to just go with the follow, I was finally able to decide. Now the next step I had to figure out was how to order my thoughts. I started by doing a bit of free writing to see if I could dish out any good sentences or paragraphs and also to get a better idea of how I should structure my essay.
I began by starting my essay with a broad introduction so that all the readers could relate, then I slowly started to make it more and more personal until I finally made it about my experience. My idea was to try and have the reader get emotionally involved so that way they could feel where I was coming from and why I felt as I did.
When I wrote my first and was pretty long, I had about three or four paragraphs where I was just elaborating of my feelings and emotions. I had a difficult time trying to put in order how I felt and I put as many details as I could possibly think of. After the introduction I did my best to explain a bit of the days before the climax of my essay. The climax itself I could have written an entire book about but I tried to limit myself to the most important details of that particular event. Now as for the days following my main event or idea, is where my reflection came in. I believe that was the most important aspect of my essay, it ties in what I mention in my introduction for my essay.
But it was until after we had peer review that I was able to see all the errors and flaws in my paper, my peers suggested that I offer my concrete details and also elaborate more on how I felt after the main event took my place in my life. If it were not for their suggestions my paper would have still been missing very important pieces to it.
Before I even thought about writing my essay, I was wondering how am I going to get the reader’s interest to keep reading? What’s my point? How am I going to make the reader feel my experience? I decided to answer the journalist’s questions, which gave me an idea of my thesis. My main point was to get through the reader’s mind. Looking through old year books helped me get some major and minor details to give the reader clear pictures about my feelings and past experiences.
ReplyDeleteI already had an idea of my introduction. I started it out with a captivating question and then I explained my thesis to get a connection with the reader. Then I decided to outline the body of my essay with some specific experiences, followed by some questions for each experience. Then I set up some questions for myself to answer in my conclusion, such as how was this memorable experience important and how was it life shaping? The idea was to have something similar to the introduction but better.
Each question gave me some ideas for my major and minor details. These ideas were now transferred to a different invention technique. I decided to get specific by having one page for each experience. Having each experience separated gave me enough space to free write. In my free writing, I added some humor to have the reader’s interest. I also added some concrete and abstract details so that the reader can get graphic images. I also thought it was important for the reader to feel my experiences.
These invention techniques were great ways to get make my controlling point clear and to get some insight of memorable experiences. The ideas to get the readers interest were somewhat pressuring but in the end it makes the writing interesting, with a great flow, and a good understanding of the authors purpose.
Ivonne Contreras
April Sanders
ReplyDeleteJune 18, 2012
My writing process for “Real Families”
The writing process I went through to write, “Real Families” essay was not too tough. Because a lot of the information was from my own knowledge, I had to do a little research using the internet. Therefore, the steps I took were simple. Like brainstorming my topic, free writing and then do the Point of Contact assignment, I received from Mr. Peterman to jog my memories.
First was the brainstorming. This for me was the most difficult because it was hard to pick one topic from my pass to elaborate. I had to sit down every day and night for two days to come up with topics that follow with an exciting finish. It was hard. I needed to be in a quiet place and not be disturbed. Thankfully, my family gave me full cooperation. In addition, a little pray never hurts.
Secondly was free writing. Once I picked my topic, I started free writing. It was a help at first, because it broke my writer’s block. I just started writing and before I knew it, I had five pages of constructive information to use. However, my mistake was, I did not “free type” on the computer. I should have typed the information, then used the paste and cut controls, to eliminate the excess writing. This makes the computer accessible for research and other tools it offers.
Thirdly was the Point of Contact. It is a useful tool. The Point of Contact is when you make contact with family and friends to rehash the past and or visit the places that will bring back old memories. In my case, I called up my sisters whom give me dates, ages and many memories I had forgot. It was great to rehash the memories with my sisters.
In conclusion, I do not know if it was because it was my life experience, that made the writing process much easier for me, but the writing process came naturally. Furthermore, I enjoyed learning the English writing process because English is a subject that I intent to focus heavily upon as I continue my future studies.
A brief process analysis about – A Personal Essay
ReplyDelete1. The class were introduced to free writing and encouraged to write freely without worrying about punctuation or spelling or even worrying about typing anything in particular.
2. The students were encouraged to write daily without worrying about anything particular to write about or when writing how the final product will look like. In this type of free writing, the class was encouraged to look at repeating phrases or points that came up.
3. The class brainstormed on types of writing (topic). May ideas, suggestions were written down without worrying about the structure or format. Many ideas were brought forward.
4. Mapping was done on the topic and different ideas were brought forward from one topic. Different branches of ideas were written or taken from the main topic. This helped to know what the main topic can be linked too (different ideas) were generated from those branches.
5. The class was shown a sample of a particular type of writing - about memory and experience. In this sample, the author had a nostalgic view and reminisced about a teacher when he was younger, who encouraged him and inspired him to read. The author explained how by a teacher by doing this, changed his life in a positive way.
6. The class was assigned a point of contact exercise in which they were asked to think about a topic they want to write about. A personal essay. They were asked to write a few sentences describing their topic. Then they were asked to go home and do an exercise on exploring the topic they were interested in writing. E.g. If they wanted to write about their family, to look at family albums, to speak to a friend or relative who remembered a special event, or email or discuss about the event that had happened they were interesting in writing about. This exercise would help them explore more about the topic and view it from a different view point than their own.
7. The class was given different tools to work with. E.g. An exercise was done in class to identify abstract and concrete details. A presentation was given on understanding topic sentences, putting in details, supporting ideas etc.
8. The class was told to write their essay to bring in a rough draft, not worrying too much about having a perfect topic.
9. An in class peer review of the personal essay was done. The class was asked to share their essays with 3 classmates and vice versa to review their essay and provide their feedback.
10. The class was asked to read through the essay and some points they were asked to note were: if the paper had a controlling idea, was there organization, coherence, ideas presented in a logical order, clear, effective etc.
11. The students were asked to review the comments and incorporate the ones they agreed with in their paper.
12. The students were asked to bring in their final essay.
Mahjabeen Ajani
Crystal Casas: When given our first assignment for our first essay I didn’t know what to write. During class I tried to think of what I could possibly write about in my life that has had a significant impact on my life. I first thought of how my mother and father use to always lecture my brother and I about how important our education was for the future. I had thought that that would be the topic of my first essay, but I had to narrow it down to a certain time or when I thought it was most important that it really made me open my eyes about education being so important. I thought of the times when my mother and father would get onto my brother for his poor grades but I didn’t think that was good enough. During class Monday I told everyone I was going to do it over education but I really was not certain about it. I mostly said it so that I had my homework done, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure as to if that was really what I was going to write about. In the end I decided to write about a very emotional time in my life. I decided to write of my cousin’s accident and idiocy because it affected him but also my family and I did learn from it. Family is an important thing in a person’s life and they will be there for you when you most need them, but families are not perfect and can have their problems and can split apart. When I really thought about what to write the night before I knew that event in my life was what I would need to write about.
ReplyDeleteI first began my personal essay by creating a bubble chart to brainstorm my thoughts. For the first several days, I wasn't too sure what to write about and had writer's block. It took me several different bubble charts to really get my final idea down, but once I settled on a particular moment, or trip rather, the storyline started flowing. I decided to write about a trip that I went on to Canada with my parents and some friends. I chose this particular trip because I felt there were enough interesting topics to entertain my readers with.
ReplyDeleteThe main idea laid in the center of the bubble chart and then from there, I began to jot down people, places and things that stuck out in my mind from that trip. My first focus was the title. I thought "Oh, Canada" sounded fitting at first but then decided to spice things up and change it to "Blame Canada". I immediately knew how I wanted the last paragraph to sound and how I wanted to set the tone. Next, I realized I was getting ahead of myself and chose to focus on my first paragraph. I wanted to set the background of my story and explain what I was doing while really reeling the reader in. After reading the constructive criticism from my classmates, I started to see that my first draft had quite a few things in the incorrect order. It needed some editing and I started testing out which areas should go where. The story was pretty descriptive from the get-go but I also realized that there was a lot of excess information that really had no point of being in the essay.
After rewriting my essay the second time, I felt it was more flowy and complete. Hearing it read aloud by someone else though, let me notice where I could make some improvements. I am still in the process of completing my final draft but I'm trying to build more into my climax of the narrative. I felt I tied the story and reflection well with the title of the draft and I hope the outcome of the final draft is a success.
Before I began writing my essay, I wrote ample notes and ideas for atleast an hour. I wrote down ideas for a title to my essay. I wrote down ideas for my thesis (which my group helpfully suggested I find a way to better link my my thesis the body of my essay) and thoughts on how exactly I would ease into the meat of my essay. I used the proccess of elimination to decide the title of my essay and gave deep thought to the connection that my title would have to my essay. Would it give some hint to what my essay was about? Would "Lost to the Ocean" intruige the audience and make them eager to read on? I wanted to be mysterious because I am sort if a mysterious person. I included my favorite pass times in crisp detail. I often zone out in my mental pictures when I write, that is why I am able to include vivid detail in my writings. Once I had my foundation I began writing and encorporating my ideas and thoughts I had written down. I live to write so it ended up being very long winded but once I am finish it will be fine
ReplyDeleteWhen I started writing my personal essay,I asked some of my family members what I should write about. They were all good, but I finally knew what I really wanted to write about. I wrote down all notes and thoughts pertaining to my topic, and put them together in chronological order. I setup my paper as an outline.
ReplyDeleteGeneral Purpose
Specific Purpose
Thesis
1. Introduction
- Open with impact
- Connect with audience
- State thesis
2.Body
- Point A.
1.
2.
3.
- Point B.
1.
2.
3.
- Point C.
1.
2.
3.
3. Conclusion
- Restate main points
- Close with impact.
For my writing strategies I first have to think of a topic to write about. I don’t do any of the things our English professors ask for us to do, and maybe I should but I feel like none of that works for me. I will begin with first thinking about it and how I relate to it if I don’t at all and if not I do some research. After I finish with that and I have learn about the subject if I didn’t know anything about it I began writing ideas down on paper and just write with no particular order. When Ideas come to me I write them and if they don’t make sense to the paper then eventually they fall into place with it.
ReplyDeleteI think about the point I want to make to the audience and see how I can make it clear to them. The emotions of my paper is another thing I want to make clear and I want them to understand how it felt and so I think of ways I can do that I have to find my main idea and how I want to make my point. Personal essays are usually something simple because they have to deal with who I am and things like I as a person already know. When I am done with my essay I put a lot of thought to my conclusion because I feel that that is one of the most important things about an essay. It is the end when I bring my readers to the light of what exactly I am trying to say.