Write What You Know
In your previous essays, you have written about topics that you know and care about: your family, hobbies, interests, and experiences. In your next essays, you will continue to write about what you know and care about, but will apply more analysis to your purpose and audience.
These essays are designed to
(1) help you learn how to ask questions about your topic to discover what you know and do
not know about it
(2) help you sift through the answers to the questions, deciding which are pertinent for both
your purpose and audience
(3) help you find precise words for effective communication with your readers
(4) help you order information appropriately to achieve your purpose and communicate with
your readers.
These essays are designed to
(1) help you learn how to ask questions about your topic to discover what you know and do
not know about it
(2) help you sift through the answers to the questions, deciding which are pertinent for both
your purpose and audience
(3) help you find precise words for effective communication with your readers
(4) help you order information appropriately to achieve your purpose and communicate with
your readers.
Writing Task
Examine the area in which you live - the block, apartment complex, neighborhood, subdivision, or road, paying particular attention to those things and/or people that make you like or dislike your neighborhood. Then, describe your neighborhood in such a way that your reader, a person of your own age who lives in a different community, can tell immediately why you like or dislike it.
As you examine your neighborhood, you should concentrate on those features you can use to make a reader your own age feel the same way about the neighborhood as you do. Finally, select and use words that will affect your reader and stimulate the desired emotional response.
Purpose: Your purpose is to express your feelings about your neighborhood and try to persuade a reader your own age, through choice of words and details, to react to the neighborhood in much the same manner as you do.
As you examine your neighborhood, you should concentrate on those features you can use to make a reader your own age feel the same way about the neighborhood as you do. Finally, select and use words that will affect your reader and stimulate the desired emotional response.
Purpose: Your purpose is to express your feelings about your neighborhood and try to persuade a reader your own age, through choice of words and details, to react to the neighborhood in much the same manner as you do.
Prewriting: Asking Questions
Begin the process of asking questions about your subject to gather information to include in your essay. By experiencing the search for significant questions - the kinds of questions writers ask in order to discover what is relevant in their experiences - you can learn how to find material that is appropriate to the purpose of the writing task and to the audience. The importance of the search for material through questioning cannot be stressed too much, for not learning how to question, how to probe, will probably result in treating subjects only superficially.
We will begin with these question and expand them together.
We will begin with these question and expand them together.
- What is special about where I live? What if, anything, makes it different from other blocks, neighborhoods, or communities?
- Is my neighborhood attractive because the houses or buildings are maintained well by the owners, or is it unattractive because it is old and run-down?
- What thing in my neighborhood do I find appealing or unappealing?
- What colors in my neighborhood make the block appealing or unappealing?
- What odors in my neighborhood make it a pleasant or unpleasant place in which to live?
- What kinds of people live in my neighborhood? Do they make it a pleasant or unpleasant place in which to live? If the people in my neighborhood do not behave like people in other neighborhoods, should I describe some of their actions so that my reader will understand why the people make the neighborhood pleasant or unpleasant? Is it sufficient to tell my readers only that the people are friendly or unfriendly?
- How much should I tell my reader?
- How should I begin my description? How can I capture my reader's interest?
Where i Live - prewriting | |
File Size: | 30 kb |
File Type: | docx |