Fall Writing Assessment

1. Fall Writing Assessment 2011

2. Writing has two basic components • Content, quality of ideas • Technical writing skill

3. Goals Today • Overall reminders about strong writing • Commentary on what we saw while grading • Have you evaluate your strengths and areas of improvements at the current time • Become familiar with E 11 Rubric • Work to make improvements on your assessment • Get you pumped and confident for Othello essay

4. Prompt • Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. • Essay Prompt: Choose a novel, short story, play, film, or t.v. show in which such an alienated character plays a significant role. In a well constructed essay show how that character’s alienation reveals the surrounding society’s assumptions or moral values.

5. Review what you wrote • Ask yourself: • Did I choose a strong example(s)? • Did I fully answer the prompt by showing how a character’s alienation reveals the surrounding society’s assumptions or moral values. (perhaps take a highlighter and highlight all your sentences that provide commentary on the society’s assumptions or moral values) • How interesting/original is my analysis about society’s assumptions and/or moral values (beyond just “society is racist or sexist”?) • Did I take time to proofread so my writing is technically as strong as it could be?

6. Positives • Some great examples: Piggy/Simon from LOTF, Taylor from BT, Lennie from OMAM, Michael from Blind Side, Guy in Fahrenheit 451) • Some depth and interesting ideas • Almost every student gave a full effort; only a few essays where students clearly didn’t try their best. Continued efforts on essays like this will result in substantial improvement in writing over the course of a year.

7. Recurring issues we saw: • Verbose writing! More is not always better. Avoid lots of SAT words. Always seek to be understood, not to show how much smarter you are than everyone else. • It also helps when you vary sentence length. Too many long sentences decrease the readability of pieces. • Way too much plot summary! These are analytical essays, not expository ones. 1-2 sentences of summary is enough

8. More Reoccurring issues • Did not fully answer the prompt. The prompt did not ask HOW a character is alienated but WHAT their alienation shows us about the society’s assumptions and moral values. • Poor Topic Sentences that lack an original idea (TS=King!). Have a real thesis and a structure to your argument. This is worth taking the time to do right. • Problematic or surface examples (Hassan from KR, Tom Robinson from TKAM) • Lack of cohesion between ideas

9. Specific thoughts: Piggy • Throughout this book, he is constantly bullied, actions that display the values of Piggy’s society to the reader. • In this novel, Piggy is alienated because of his weight, his appearance, and his ideas. • Because of his unique perspective, his will to maintain morals, and his determination and hope, Piggy highlights the flaws of the boys and reveals the difference between the civilized and uncivilized. • Piggy’s alienation reveals society’s prejudicial and superficial tendencies and the desire to find security in the mistreatment of others.

10. Cohesion: misalignment of society’s values • Thesis: Mocked for his unsightly appearance and adoration of rules, the other characters band together against Piggy from the moment he appears. Piggy’s immediate alienation is caused by the other boys’ prejudice against his looks and behavior due to their upbringings. • TS: Society conditions people to value beauty: Piggy’s weight and glasses, far from beautiful, are the criteria the boys use to alienate him. • TS: Piggy’s strict organization and love of discipline work against him; he is alienated because he deviates from the norm, which causes fear in the boys.

11. Strong Insights • “Ender’s futuristic society values the lust of attention and victory.” • “Will Smith’s character is an outsider in a fast moving world of business; the audience is able to see the alarmingly heartless values of the business world.” • “Through protagonist Guy Montag’s complete estrangement from society, the surrounding citizens unconsciously exhibit their true moral standing. Their lifestyle is one of play rather than work, amusement rather than academia, and by the end it becomes clear how easily such a delusional civilization can descend into chaos.

12. Your Task: • Actually write on your assessment some notes about what you see. What was good? What needs work? • Then, go ahead and fix anything you can. Perhaps topic sentences is a tangible place to revise. • After about 10-15mins, we will move towards Othello. Please also look at your last literary analysis essay and see what you did well and where you need to improve. Put your assessment in your writing folder and put them in cabinet.

13. Let’s turn to Othello • Gather into a group. Discuss your topic sentences from the hwk. Merging your ideas, create one kick-butt topic sentence (any of the prompts is fine) and put it up on the board. • We will then discuss and evaluate them. • Get Othello essay prompts and explain essay.