OBJECT ESSAY ASSIGNMENT (includes HW for W. 9/14 / Th. 9/15)

Object Essay: ENG 101

Jack Christian

Genre: Personal Essay

Audience: the same audience as envisioned by Dillard and Kothari (the examples we’ve read in class)

Length: 2-3 pages

Due Dates: Initial Draft, W. 9/14 or Th. 9/15; Final Draft M. 9/20 or T. 9/21

 Goals:

1)      For students to use an inanimate object as a metaphor for discussion a complicated thing (emotion, event, reaction, idea) in their lives.

2)      For students to discover, through the process of writing, what they would like to convey, and then revise their essay for that purpose, i.e. to discover a reason for writing, and then to revise with that reason in mind.

3)      For students to revise to fit an essay into a specific form in imitation of personal essays considered in class

4)      For students to gain confidence in their ability to craft a thoughtful personal essay, and to engage and structure complex ideas within the personal essay form

Process:

               

For this essay, your job is to find an object that you can make to symbolize something you feel complicated about. The two examples to guide us in this task are Annie Dillard’s “Living Like Weasels” (in which the weasel symbolizes, or is made to carry Dillard’s complicated feelings about how to be alive), and Geeta Kothari’s “If You Are What You Eat…” (in which Kothari uses food to symbolize her complicated feelings about her own identity).

1. Class 9/12 / 9/13

Free-writing: What are ideas, events, feelings, etc in your life that you feel complicated about?

Follow-up: what objects can you use to symbolize or “to carry” (i.e. to help you discuss) the complication?

HW:

Read Kothari essay (handout). Consider how Kothari’s essay could have grown from an assignment similar to the one you are being given. 1-page informal response.

Write 2-3 page COMPLETE initial draft of your own essay. Bring 2 COPIES to next class.

2. Class 9/14 / 9/15

Sharing and Peer Response.

Read and Diagram “Supperclub.” Discuss.

HW: Write second draft of Object Essay, making it conform to structure identified in “Supperclub.”

3. Class 9/19 / 9/20

Turn in Finished Draft of Object Essay

Sharing and Reflection