Descriptive/Narrative

Failing to Act

FAILING TO ACT

The Prompt: Both George Orwell and Martin Gansberg deal with the consequences of failing to act. As you consider their narratives, brainstorm a list of times in your life when you had a choice to take action or not. How did your decision have an impact on your life, or not? Perhaps it was a time when you “gave it your all” –or wish you had. You might think of some of the following scenarios to get your thinking going: the first person you asked on a date, catching frogs as a child, joining a team or a club, words spoken to a loved one, a graduation celebration, the first time you drank liquor, a trip to the Grand Canyon, the loss of a pet, learning to drive a car, the break-up of a relationship, or even the first time you went “firewalking”. After brainstorming, pick one and consider why it is that your decision to act or not is a memorable experience, what is it about the experience that is important and meaningful? What did you learn? Keep the following in mind as you write your essay:

Determine your point and purpose. Select descriptive details with your purpose in mind. Are you writing to entertain or to inform?
Establish a context or setting identify your audience. Who do you expect to read your essay? Is your essay written for a specialized audience or a lay audience? What is the tone or dominant impression you hope to impress upon your audience? Is this a place of tension, serenity, or comedy?
Choose the most appropriate point of view.
Select details of the event. Collect sensory details about your subject. Think of the five senses in relation to where you are.

Organize your narrative. Consider the organization of the picture you are creating. Are you moving from general to specific, smallest to largest, least important to most important, from usual to unusual or objective to subjective?
Keep your verb tense consistent. Use specific strong nouns and verbs. Use a thesaurus.
Use narrative time for emphasis. Use figurative language like metaphors and similes.
Use transitional words to clarify narrative sequence.
Use dialogue to bring your narrative to life.

Essay Formatting: Your essay should be 3 pages long, double spaced, 12 font, times new roman, with 1 inch margins all around. You should include an original title that says something about the story you are telling. Have fun choosing a title; make it interesting. In addition, you should have a heading on the upper right corner of your paper that includes your name, class number and section ie: 101- , the date, and the type of paper you are submitting ie: Descriptive/Narrative.

The Process: I’m sure one of the first questions you are asking is “How do I go about this”? Well, I suggest you do some brainstorming on a piece of paper or on the Notes section of WebCt or the Discussion Board on Blackboard. If you use the Notes section or Blackboard, you can share some of your ideas with others. Make this a collaborative effort. If you are uncomfortable sharing very personal experiences, I suggest you chose something not so personal because you will be sharing and working on your papers with the other members of class.

Once you have done some brainstorming of several ideas, read them over and choose which one you think has the most depth or engagement and do some more focused writing. It helps to start with a “working thesis statement” which will control your essay because everything you write will have some connection with the thesis. It’s a working thesis because, sometimes, once you have written your paper, you realize your writing has focused somewhat differently than your original thesis suggested, so it needs “tweaking”. Here’s a link that might help http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/sensen/part3/sixteen/techniques_thesis.html

Write everything you can about the event or situation. Don’t worry about it being in order or making a lot of sense. The idea is to get the information down on paper in a Word document. Here’s a link that might help. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_plan1.html or http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/pp/writproc.PPT#271,15,Where can you go for additional help with assignments for any class?

Next, read over what you have written and think about how would you like to organize it—spatially? By time? By the importance of the event?—you choose. Ask yourself questions about what you wrote. How can you expand it? What details have you left out? Have you included details that are not necessary? Have you completed each thought fully? What more do your think the audience would need to know about to fully understand your story? Rearrange what you have written already so that is makes better sense and develops into a focused descriptive narrative.

Add transitions. Transitions can be used at the beginning of paragraphs, in between sentences, and within sentences. They help lead the reader and move your essay.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/transitions.htm