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Lesson_5/Section_1/reading_assignment_core_3.html

Prewriting: Process Analysis

Your project must be submitted as a Word document (.docx, .doc, .rtf)*. Your project will be individually graded by your instructor and therefore may take up to seven days to grade.

Be sure that each of your files contains the following information:

• Your name
• Your student ID number
• The exam number (355101)

To submit your graded project, proceed to the Lesson Assignment page in the course. Follow the instructions provided to upload the file and submit it for grading.

Be sure to keep a backup copy of any files you submit to the school!

After your assignment has been graded, feedback will be available on the Lesson Assignment page within the course. It will have an option to download the feedback from the instructor.

Process Analysis

A process analysis essay focuses on a series of steps. These steps may describe how to do something, like how to balance a checkbook or how to change the oil in a car. Another approach is to describe how something is done. In this case, the steps might describe how the Federal Reserve decides to raise interest rates, or how your college spends your tuition money.

For your process analysis prewriting, choose one of the following topics.

• Identify and describe the steps you take to manage your time to balance school, work, family, and other responsibilities.
• If you have difficulty managing your time, identify steps you could implement to help accomplish your school, work, family, and other responsibilities.
• If you have succeeded in creating a good balance between work and life, work and school, or work and home, explain the steps you took to achieve that specific balance.

Prewriting Instructions:

This prewriting assignment requires two paragraphs. Each paragraph employs a pattern of development that was covered in the reading for this lesson. Before you begin, you should review narration, description, and process analysis by reviewing the required reading for Lesson 5. You should also review the section on freewriting in chapter 4 in your textbook. Because this assignment focuses on your own process for managing your time or achieving a work/life balance, you will use first-person (I) point of view.

Tip for Success: Be sure to check out the resources available to you in
the Learning Resource Center for videos and worksheets to help you complete this assignment.

For your first paragraph, use the narration, description, and illustration techniques you learned about in this lesson to describe your daily activities. You’ll write about the activities you dedicate time to including schoolwork, family responsibilities, and your job. Also include other pursuits such as hobbies, sports, and volunteer and social activities that occupy your time. This paragraph should be between 500–550 words.

In your second paragraph, focus on your steps. Identify 3–4 steps that you have taken or that you could take to manage your time or achieve a work/life balance. Use process analysis to explain each step in detail. For example, you may use a calendar app on your smartphone; explain which app, what functions you use, why it’s a valuable tool, and how it helps you. You’ll write between 500–550 words for this paragraph too.

Your description paragraph might look something like this:

It has been a challenge to balance all the areas of my life since I became an online student. Each day, I struggle to balance my full-time job, my personal life, and my schoolwork. I work as a Physicians’ Aid at Holy Cross Hospital. Monday through Friday, I leave at 6:00 am to make the hour and ten-minute commute from my home so I can be on time. My job is multifaceted. I help the nurses and doctors by doing intake for their patients, taking patient weight and height measurements, temperature, and blood pressure. I also go over each patient’s medical history to ensure everything is correct. Most of my job, though, is focused on administrative duties. With all these responsibilities, my workday is a blur, and I often don’t have time to take a break before it is 3:30 pm and I begin my commute home. Even though my workday responsibilities are done, my weeknight responsibilities often make me feel as though my day has barely started. I have two teenaged daughters, Zella and Jade, so I spend much of my evenings enforcing rules, dispensing advice, helping with homework, and occasionally providing a shoulder to cry on. Our dog, Gizmo, also needs attention. I must have dinner ready for the whole family by 7:00 pm when my husband gets home. After dinner, I am responsible for cleaning the house. As if this weren’t enough, I am responsible for looking after my aging mother, since my sister Alyce is only eighteen and can barely look after herself. Two or three evenings a week, I go to my mother’s house, I pay her bills, help with household chores, and provide her some much-needed company. I must also complete my coursework. Though I like my job, I would like to help animals, not people. So, I enrolled in Penn Foster’s Veterinary Technician program. I find it very hard to complete schoolwork amid my other responsibilities. I am currently taking English Composition and Veterinary Office Management. I am really enjoying the veterinary course. My English Composition course, however, has been a bit of a struggle. The readings for this course requires my full attention. I find the writing assignments in the English course interesting and applicable to my future career, but the amount of effort I must put into each paper is exhausting. I need at least a two-hour chunk of time in order to get any meaningful work done, and that is hard to come by during the day with everything else going on in my life. I usually try to study around 11:30 pm, once my children and husband have already gone to bed. However, Gizmo is usually still awake, and between him vying for my attention and my sister texting me every three seconds, I am behind on my schoolwork. Each night, as I stumble into bed around 12:30 am, I wonder why I am putting myself through all this.

Here’s an example of what the process portion might look like:

To help find a way to balance all the home, work, and school responsibilities together, I decided to use some time-saving techniques, ask my family for help with responsibilities at home and set up a distraction-free study space to help me balance my life. First, I started saving time by planning out our weekly meals instead of wasting hours each night trying to think of what we should have for dinner. I also started making a grocery list, based on my weekly meal plan, to save time while grocery shopping. Before I made these changes, I wasted several hours each week deciding what to make for dinner or haphazardly picking out random items when grocery shopping. Now that I have all those extra hours available, I am able to devote about an additional hour each weekday evening to my school work. Second, I decided to call a family meeting to delegate some of the chores and responsibilities at home to my husband and my energy-filled teens. Zella now handles all the laundry during the week for both herself and Jade, Jade cleans the bathrooms every other weekday, and I now handle these chores only Saturdays. My husband also agreed to cook or bring home take-out two weekday nights per week, so that I would only have to cook three weekday evenings. He also agreed to take one of my three weeknight visits to my mother’s so that I could have more quality time with the kids, as well as more extra time for my schoolwork. This is a big relief. With all this extra help, I now had a total of three full hours I could study every weeknight. But I still needed a way to avoid distractions during my designated study time. So, for my third step, I converted our guest bedroom into a dedicated office, since we so rarely get visitors anyway. I sold the guest bed and used the money to buy a sturdy office desk. Then, I got some good lights to help me see my schoolwork and a bookshelf on which I organized all my study guides and work materials. I close the door whenever I am working so Gizmo can no longer devour my schoolwork. I also advised my sister that I will be unavailable each weeknight evening between 9:00 pm and 12:00 pm, and I shut my phone off and do not log into my email or messenger services on my computer during this time, to avoid temptation. My new office has made is so much easier to get my work done, and I’m now back on track with all my schoolwork. I even have enough time left over to take a full day on the weekends (Sunday) to relax and spend time with family. Honestly, now that I have a plan and everyone has agreed to help out more, I don’t feel so stressed, I remember why becoming a Veterinary Assistant is so important to me, and I know I can do this.

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