Advanced Grammar and Composition

ENG 3203.01

Fall 2008

Essay #1 Assignment

Your first essay (September) will be a letter to an editor of a newspaper or magazine.  You will choose your topic.  Your purpose is to communicate a critical perspective to a specific audience clearly and persuasively.  You should read multiple copies of your target newspaper or magazine and consider responding to an existing letter or series of letters.  You will turn in a printed copy of your essay to me in class on Monday, 29 September and upload your essay to www.turnin.com before the beginning of that class period.

After receiving my comments and a grade, if you rewrite your essay and give it back to me with a stamped envelope addressed to the newspaper or magazine in question, I will raise your grade by five points when I mail the revised letter.

Basic Instructions

1.           Your paper should be 3-5 pages long, double-spaced, and typed.  Although letters to editors don’t have “works cited” pages, you should include one with your essay on a separate sheet (just as an exercise) following your 3-5 page essay.  The works cited page is not part of the 3-5 pages in this assignment.

2.           Please use a 11-12 pt. font (Times Roman or Courier New).  Your margins should be at least one inch per side.

3.           Do not use staples.  All documents submitted should be held together with a paperclip. 

Of course argumentation is a central focus of your  essay, and They Say/I Say will help you structure and find that critical perspective.  Every essay should have a strong thesis, strong topic sentences, good grammar, and good evidence.  When I report your essay grades to you, I will try to communicate as much specific information as possible by breaking down the grade into five areas, each weighted differently.  Fifty percent of your essay grade will come from my assessment of the essay's content and organization: Was there strong content?  Were the ideas presented logically and as requested by the assignment?  Does the paper contain a clear introduction and summary statement?  For style, I will look specifically at sentence structures and transitions.  For diction, I will examine your spelling and word choice.  For mechanics and grammar, I will focus on whether or not you are using the MLA conventions correctly and whether or not you are making any serious grammatical errors.  In particular, I will look for fragments, comma splices, agreement errors (both pronoun and subject/predicate), apostrophe errors, and fused sentences.  Four of these errors in any combination in any essay will merit a “20” for the essay.  "1" is the lowest mark for one of these areas; "5" is the highest.  I will use this grading scale:

 
Content (1-5)
Organization (1-5) x 5 = _____________
Style (1-5)
Diction (1-5) x 3 = ___________
Mechanics and Grammar (1-5) x 4 = _______________
Total:__________________

Last updated 7 September 2008