Writing Project Two

English 450 Writing Project Two

Due Date: Wed. Sept. 5^th (Section #11440) OR Fri. Sept. 6^th (Sections 11414, 11419)

Tutor Sheet or Email #2 Due with the Writing Project

Percent of Grade: 3%

Final Form: Turn in typed, MLA-style one to two page example paragraph. Staple the paper in the upper-left corner, attaching after (or behind) your final draft, the tutor sheet and the draft that was shown or emailed to the tutor.

Audience: an intelligent, rational person who has read and is interested in understanding Animal Dreams. Use the handout "A Note on Style" and Chapter 2 of your textbook to help you develop a fuller sense of your audience.

Goal: to give a reader of Animal Dreams a deeper understanding of a particular character or narrative voice.

Directions

Read Structuring Paragraphs and Essays, 112-119, and Animal Dreams, 3-53, and the sample paper, "Carlo: Codi's Mr. Wrong."

Select one of the following characters: Codi (Cosmina), Hallie (Halimeda), or Homero. (Note you cannot write on Carlo.) Consider what you know of their personality from what you have read in the book so far (you can consider further than page 53 if you have read more of the novel). Determine one important facet of the character's personality to focus on. You will write an example paper showing the character possesses this key characteristic. For example, you could choose courage, protectiveness, low self-esteem, idealism, cynicism, fear, or grief. Discuss at least three examples from the novel that prove this character has this personality trait. Remember your audience has read the book, so you don't need to tell the story again--you need to discuss how the story incident or speech demonstrates a particular characteristic of the character. Don't forget to give page numbers, using MLA style, for all your examples.

Your topic sentence or thesis needs to state the character's name, the point about the character, and that you are only discussing the beginning of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Dreams.

Take this sheet, the handout on style, the sample paper, Animal Dreams, and your paragraph to the writing center and show ALL FIVE to the tutor. (For on-line or COW tutoring, you need to email the tutor this web address http://hal.ucr.edu/~cathy/f01-450wp2.html so that they can see the handouts.) Be sure to get the white copy of your tutor sheet to turn in. If you use the on-line tutoring or COW, print out the tutor's email to you for credit for tutoring.

Revise your paragraph as recommended by the tutor. Type the paragraph, following the model used on the sample paper, "Carlo: Codi's Mr. Wrong." Note how all quotes from the novel are part of a larger sentence. Note how short quotes are in quotation marks and followed by the page number in parenthesis and a period outside the parenthesis. Note the long quote is indented, has no quotation marks, and no punctuation after the page number. Not the ellipsis that leaves out more than one sentence is four dots, and the ones that indicate only a few words of one sentence are three dots.

Grading Criteria

The minimum passing requirements (to get a C or better) are as follows.

must be typed in MLA style
must be on the assigned topic or an approved alternative
must contain at least three clear examples from Animal Dreams
must have a clear, appropriate topic sentence or thesis
must have less than fifteen grammatical/mechanical errors per page
must have no major inaccurate or false statements
must be basically clear and comprehensible
must stick to the one significant idea of the topic sentence (the thesis) and not digress or wander off into other areas
must not be plagiarized and must give accurate page numbers

B papers have less than ten errors per page.
A- papers have less than five errors per page.
A papers have two or fewer errors per page.
Excellence in style or content may lead to a paper with more errors getting a slightly higher grade.
A papers have perfect unity, coherence, and grammar. The support is excellent and strong. The word use and diction is appropriate and interesting.
A+ papers usually have exceptional originality, smoothness, or stylistic brilliance, in addition to the regular qualities of an A paper.
Coherence problems will pull a strong argument down to a B, C, or D, depending on how severe they are.
Weak, short support can pull a well-written paper with a clever, original thesis down to a B, C, or D as well.
A weak, barely acceptable thesis (a pretty obvious claim)--even if supported by brilliant, clever writing that is grammatically perfect, fully coherent, and perfectly unified--will get no higher than a B-, so select your thesis with care.