Assignment Guidelines
Short Essay 1
Word Count: approximately 500 words
Submission: please submit your essay as a .PDF or .docx file only.
This semester, you will submit two (2) short essays. There are three (3) essay due dates built into the course. You choose only two of the short essays. This requires a certain amount of self-awareness on your part. You will have to make sure that you are keeping up with upcoming deadlines.
Because these are short essays (responses, even), you will need to be mindful of filler and empty words. In a response that is only 500-words, you do not need a full introduction or conclusion, and you will not have a true thesis. Read the essay prompts carefully to be sure that you are doing what you are asked to do in the space you have. If you have questions about an assignment, be sure to email and ask for help or clarification. I’m here to help!
These responses are designed to give you an opportunity to engage with the course materials in a deeper way, and to get some practice with submitting formal essay assignments. Unlike the discussion activities, these assignments are examples of formal academic writing, so you should write accordingly. I will evaluate your essay on your ability and willingness to engage with the ideas, but also on your sentence development and composition. Therefore, you should leave yourself time to think about and revise your work before you submit it.
These assignments will ask you to examine a single text or texts supplied by your instructor. You should include at least two short quotations in your essay, ensuring they are cited using MLA or APA format. Please include a Works Cited page if you use MLA or a References List if you are using APA.
Short Essay 1:
For this essay, you should choose one of the readings from the Online Readings Folder. Look at how the writer develops their paragraphs to organize their arguments and to guide the reader. Choose a section of the essay and explain how each paragraph guides the reader and organizes the writer’s information. You will not, in 500-words, be able to explain the paragraphing of an entire work. You should instead choose a section to focus on and explain how it represents the writer’s strategies for developing paragraphs. Do you notice any patterns in the author’s paragraph development? What strategies does the author rely on in order to inform readers of the development of their ideas?
You may wish to ask a GenAI tool to develop your answer and you may include that information in your response. Just make sure to cite the GenAI tool. I will provide instructions on how to cite GenAI in a References list. Also, if you use GenAI, I will provide feedback based on Dr. Phillipa Hardman’s AI Learning Taxonomy. This feedback will help guide you as you develop your GenAI skills.
Writing Expectations:
1. You must submit your short essay as a .PDF or .docx file, which will allow me to provide in-line comments on your submitted assignment.
2. Ensure that your assignment includes at least two short quotations from the essay you have selected. Pick quotations that provide engaging ideas rather than general dates, figures, and facts. Make sure that you frame or integrate your quotations within your own sentences. Set them up with a voice marker like the following: [Author] argues specifically that “quotation quotation quotation” (par. 4). See the Writing Tips and Strategies folder for me suggestions about how to work with quotations.
3. Write every verb in your essay in the active voice instead of the passive voice. If you do not know the difference between active voice and passive voice, please look it up in the Hacker textbook, or email me a request for more information. See the Writing Tips and Strategies folder, as well.
4. In your essay, avoid the following weak or ineffective verbs. These are verbs that students typically love, but they also introduce a lack of clarity or precision in student writing. The list of verbs to avoid includes the following: uses, is able to, shows, sees, lets, gives, makes, allows, keeps, does, says, talks, goes, brings, highlights, showcases, etc. These verbs are especially ineffective in the passive voice.
5. Focus instead on effective and engaging verbs that represent that actions that writers and thinkers actually do. These include the following: argues, suggests, states, writes, discusses, explores, emphasizes, expresses, represents, declares, examines, compares, contrasts, encourages, defines, agrees, disagrees, etc.
6. Please indicate at the conclusion of your essay how much feedback you would like. I will send instructions for what I mean by the different types of feedback.
