Diagnostic Quiz. The Diagnostic Quiz is designed to assess your knowledge of sentence structure, grammar, mechanics, and style. The quiz will provide you with feedback on your strengths and weaknesses. You will receive full points for taking the quiz no matter what your score. If you have questions or concerns about any of the quiz items, please contact your instructor or TA. Ideally, you should work toward remediating any knowledge or skill deficits revealed by the Diagnostic Quiz.
Estimated Time on Task: 1 hour
Diagnostic Essay. The diagnostic writing exercise will help your instructor discover who you are as a writer. The essay will be used to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses as a writer, and it will allow the instructor the opportunity to identify grammatical, mechanical, and stylistic problems specific to each student. You will earn full credit for completing this assignment, as long as you follow instructions.
Word Range: 400-500 Estimated Time on Task: 1hour
Please select one of the topics below as the subject of a short essay.
Topic 1: Favorite Location
Think of a specific location that means something to you, such as the ocean, front porch of a favorite family restaurant, or perhaps a favorite room in your home. Convey that meaning to the reader by describing the location as it impacts three of the five senses – sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell.
Topic 2: Healthy vs. Happy? Is taking care of your health—watching what you eat, exercising regularly, etc.—a big waste of time? Isn’t life too short to worry about these things? Shouldn’t we just eat and do what we want? Explain your position.
Topic 3: Work Preference
Some people prefer to work for themselves or own a business. Others prefer to work for an employer. Would you rather be self-employed, work for someone else, or own a business? Use specific reasons and details to explain your choice.
Topic 4: Women in Combat
Although female soldiers have recently been allowed to take jobs in previously all-male battalions, over 250,000 combat jobs still remain closed to them. Some argue that this unfairly limits career growth, while others contend that women are not able to withstand the physical and psychological nature of combat. Do you think that women should be able to serve in combat positions? Why or why not?
There is a 400- to 500-word requirement. Your essay should have an introductory paragraph, a concluding paragraph, and at least two body paragraphs. Your essay should also have a title. It usually takes an absolute minimum of three sentences to develop an idea in paragraph form. Please take this information into account when you plan your essay.
Before writing your essay, watch Writing an Essay.
The essays written for this section are diagnostic in nature. As such, you will not receive a grade, and your essays will not be used to place you into classes. Your instructor and/or teaching assistant (TA) will use this essay to provide you with assistance tailored to your needs.
When reading your essay, your instructor and/or TA will look for the following features:
Structure: The consistency with which the writer identifies and maintains the essay’s main idea. Two main points of structure include the thesis statement and the topic sentences.
Thesis Statement – Emphasizes the main point proven in the essay. The thesis usually occurs early in the essay, most ideally as the last sentence in the introduction.
Topic Sentences – Occur near the beginning of each paragraph; they state what the paragraph proves and advance the main idea conveyed in the thesis statement.
Development: How the writer uses details and examples to evolve ideas throughout the essay.
Organization: The sequence of ideas presented in the essay. All of the ideas within the essay should clearly relate to the main point.
Style: How writers choose to express themselves. Elements of style include word choice, sentence construction, and clarity. Style usually varies somewhat according to the audience and purpose of the writing.
Strengths and Weaknesses in Writing. In Chapter 1 of Essentials of College Writing, you reviewed a comprehensive list of typical college writing tasks, and you had the opportunity to identify three tasks as strengths and three tasks as weaknesses. Identify and share these strengths and weaknesses, citing examples from past experiences. Then, tell specifically how you plan to resolve the three weaknesses you identified.
Reading Strategies. After studying the active reading strategies in Chapter 2 of Essentials of College Writing, read Chapters 1 and 2 and the “Instructor Guidance” for Week One again, applying the Survey-Question-Read-Recite-Review (SQ3R) strategy as you reread the materials. Discuss how this reading strategy is similar to and/or different from the way you read course material previously. Relate how this strategy improved your comprehension of the course materials in just the first two chapters. Do you think this strategy will be helpful to you in other college courses? Explain with support from your reading.
Generating Ideas for Writing. Review the material in Chapter 3 of the Essentials of College Writing text regarding development of thesis statements. Then, review the techniques for generating ideas discussed in Chapter 4 of Essentials of College Writing. In preparation for your narrative essay, use both chapters to experiment with generating ideas for your narrative essay and to produce a working thesis statement for your draft this week. Share your experiences in this discussion indicating the topic you have chosen, your working thesis statement, and the technique(s) you have employed to properly organize your essay.
Elements of Narration. After reading the essay “The Death of My Father” by Steve Martin in Chapter 5 ofEssentials of College Writing, identify at least three elements of narration in Martin’s essay and analyze the effectiveness of those elements by describing what made those elements effective. You should also be able to state the author’s purpose for writing the narrative, determine the intended audience, and identify the thesis statement.
Narrative Essay Draft. The body of the essay draft must be 500 to 600 words in length (approximately two body pages), and it must have a title page. The essay must be formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center, located within the Learning Resources tab on the left navigation toolbar, in your online course.
Choose one of the following topics:
a. Draft a narrative about returning to school. You may explore the issues regarding why you decided to return to school, the benefits of obtaining a college degree, changes in your lifestyle required for you to pursue your degree, obstacles to successful completion of your degree program, strategies you will use to overcome these obstacles, or any other subject related to your educational pursuits.
b. Draft a narrative about a singular experience you have had within the last few years that strikes you as particularly significant and has changed the way you are or the way you think about things. Note: This essay should recount and examine one experience only (not several). Yes: The day your car broke down. No: The car troubles you have had all year.
For this essay, you should practice the strategies discussed in Chapters 3, 4, and 5 of Essentials of College Writing.
Before writing the draft, generate ideas for the paper by using one of the techniques discussed in Chapter 4, such as listing, preparing an outline or tree chart, brainstorming, free writing, mind mapping, or using the “Five W’s and an H” Questions. Remember that “story starters” are everywhere. Think about it—status updates on social media websites can be a good place to start. You may have already started a “note” on Facebook, and now is your chance to develop that idea into a full narrative. If you keep a journal or diary, a simple event may unfold into a more developed narrative. Simply said, your stories may be closer than you think! (Your notes or outline will not be submitted, as you have used the discussion forum to share your methods as you prepare your draft.)
As you write the draft, make sure you have a thesis statement that asserts your purpose for your narrative, a logical order (narrative often employs chronological order), and elements of effective narration. If you get stuck, review Chapter 5 for advice on writing a personal narrative and review the Steve Martin narrative. Note: Have you ever interrupted someone in the middle of telling a story and asked, “So, what’s your point?” If so, you understand the importance of the narrative thesis. Unlike an argumentative thesis, a narrative thesis argues the point of telling the story. A narrative thesis always makes the case for a story’s value or validity.
After writing the draft, proofread for grammatical, mechanical, and stylistic errors. For information about the 20 Common Writing Errors in composition courses, go the Ashford Writing Center (Chapter 6, Section 6.1) and then review Fixing Common Grammar Errors for advice on how to address those errors (Chapter 6, Section 6.6).
Word Range: 500-600
Estimated Time on Task: 4-6 hours
Note: Students may not use recycled versions of essays from PSY202 or any other previous courses. All work in this course must be original to the course.
The Qualities of an Editor. A good editor often pays close attention to detail, practices patience and self-discipline, demonstrates good organization, and seeks to correct issues in content without losing the original intent of the work. Select two qualities of an editor that are likely to prove important to your editorial work in this course and explain why they will be instrumental in improving the quality of your written work as you go forward.
The Importance of Grammar, Mechanics, and Style. You have received feedback on the Diagnostic Essay and Diagnostic Quiz from Week One as well as your Narrative Essay Draft from Week Two. You have also read about and explored common writing problems after visiting the Ashford Writing Center. Review the feedback you have received; then, identify and discuss three errors noted in grammar, mechanics, or style. Explain why you think the errors occur, how you plan to correct the errors (specifically), and how you might avoid the errors in future work.
Final Narrative Essay. After reviewing instructor feedback from your Narrative Essay Draft, revise, edit, and proofread your draft to produce a polished narrative essay. The body of the Final Narrative Essay must be 500 to 600 words in length (approximately two body pages), and it must have a title page. The essay must be formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center, located within the Learning Resources tab on the left navigation toolbar, in your online course.
Your revised, Final Narrative Essay must:
a. Demonstrate effective techniques of narration as outlined in your textbook.
b. Support your thesis statement by utilizing effective evidence and details.
c. Demonstrate logical order.
d. Be proofread for grammatical, mechanical, and stylistic errors.
e. Incorporate feedback provided by your instructor or teaching assistant.
f. Meet the requirements outlined in the “Course Grading” section, found in the left navigation of the course, for preparing and formatting papers.
Elements of Description. After reading, “Good boy, Beau. Stay,” what did you notice about the way Anna Quindlen uses description and the way she organizes her essay? What point is she trying to make? What sensory details stood out for you and why? Be specific in your explanations.
Descriptive Essay (Draft). The body of the essay draft must be 500 to 600 words in length (approximately two body pages), and it must have a title page. The essay must be formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center, located within the Learning Resources tab on the left navigation toolbar, in your online course.
Choose one of the following topics:
a. Have you ever felt drawn to a work of visual art, such as a photograph, painting, mural, or sculpture? If so, consider taking the art work as the subject of your descriptive essay. In your essay, you will need to help your reader visualize the art work while explaining what features of the art work compel your attention and/or provoke an emotional response. You will also need to explain why your response to the art work is meaningful to you and is likely to be meaningful to others.
b. Draft a descriptive essay about a person, place, or object that has some special meaning in your life. Your essay should provide specific detail about this person, place, or object that leverages effective writing and descriptive techniques. While your description may include some narrative features, you should make sure that readers feel as though they are “with you,” and can respond emotionally to the person, place, or object you have selected. Your description should be specific and concrete. Avoid generalizations (as in “he’s tall” or “she’s funny”) and appeal to the senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell).
For this essay, you should practice the strategies discussed in Chapters 3, 4, and 5 of Essentials of College Writing.
Before writing the draft, generate ideas for the essay by using one of the techniques discussed in Chapter 4, such as listing, preparing an outline or tree chart, brainstorming, free writing, mind mapping, or using the” Five W’s and an H” Questions. Some people find a photo album (or its digital equivalent) can be a great source of inspiration. If you are stumped, have a look at some of the photos you have taken of people, places, or objects and ask yourself what was so important that you took the photo. (Your notes or outline will not be submitted, as you have used the discussion forum to share your methods as you prepare your draft.)
Appeals to Logic and Reasoning. In Chapter 7of Essentials of College Writing, appeals to logic and reasoning are important components of persuasive writing. Take a moment to review one of your own problems of grammar, mechanics, or style that you have been able to remedy as a result of working through this course. Your job is to convince others to avoid this error before revising, editing, and proofreading their final descriptive essays. Use examples from your own experiences, evidence from your own essays, and good old-fashioned logic and reason to persuade people to avoid the pitfalls of the grammatical, mechanical, or stylistic error you have chosen.
Looking Back and Looking Forward. As you near the end of this course, reflect on what you have learned about English composition over the past five weeks. What are the most important concepts you learned from this course? Which chapters in your reading were the most valuable for you and why? What guidance provided by your instructor or TA was most useful? What areas of your writing do you think have improved the most? Going forward, what areas will you focus on to continue to improve your writing skills?
Final Descriptive Essay. After reviewing instructor feedback from your Descriptive Essay Draft, revise, edit, and proofread your draft to produce a polished descriptive essay. The body of the Final Descriptive Essay must be 500 to 600 words in length (approximately two body pages), and it must have a title page. The essay must be formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center, located within the Learning Resources tab on the left navigation toolbar, in your online course.
Your revised, Final Descriptive Essay must:
a. Demonstrate effective techniques of description as outlined in your textbook.
b. Support your thesis statement by utilizing effective evidence and details.
c. Demonstrate logical order.
d. Be proofread for grammatical, mechanical, and stylistic errors.
e. Incorporate feedback provided by your instructor or teaching assistant.
f. Meet the requirements outlined in the “Course Grading” section, found in the left navigation of the course, for preparing and formatting papers
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