1. What is the dominant impression of the person/place you are describing?
-Do you have SPECIFIC, clear, vivid examples, anecdotes, and/or direct quotations that illustrate your point?
-Do you show, not tell, or do you come right out and state how you feel?
(Ex of telling: I have so many great memories of this place; if there's one person I'll always remember, it's Mr. G.) Don't do this!
2. Have you made intentional selections about DIDLS? How do these choices contribute to your tone?
-What connotations do your words have?
-Have you used any figurative language? If so, to what effect?
-Have you varied sentence and paragraph lengths? Do you italicize words, use parenthesis, dashes, and/or quotation marks?
-Do you use powerful verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs? (Note: powerful does not necessarily mean big and fancy.)
-Do you create images that appeal to one or more of the senses?
-Have you been selective about the details you include? For example, if you are describing a place, you do not need to lead the reader through the place and describe EVERY detail that you see. Only describe the ones that pertain to your dominant impression. What you don't say can be just as powerful as what you do say.
3. Have you considered the way you begin your essay. You may want to begin by:
-Reflecting back:
Ex: The other day I was reading through some essays that I was going to use with my 10th grade classes; one of them got me thinking about Mrs. Goulette--my second grade teacher--and her unconventional teaching tactics. Here it is more than twenty five years later, and I still have vivid images of our backwards spelling bees standing on top of our desks. It prompted me to google her, to no avail.
-Jumping right into your description:
Mrs. Goulette's classroom was not your typical elementary school classroom. First of all, it was split between accelerated second graders and struggling third graders, something that probably wouldn't happen today. In fact, most things about Mrs. Goulette's style of teaching wouldn't fly in our modern day. She constantly singled kids out and embarrassed them. She used to dump the contents of our desks on the floor if they were messy; the unlucky student who had this happen to her (yes, I suffered this fate once) not only had to face the humiliation of watching the entire contents of her desk being spilled on the floor in front of her classmates, but she also would have to stand at recess. Kids would be lined up along the wall of the school at recess, wantonly watching as the other students played kickball and dodgeball.
-Reflect on a specific anecdote:
One of my clearest memories of Mrs. Goulette is when she told us about finding cigarettes in her daughter's purse. She spoke openly with us about her own struggles with smoking--how much she wanted to quit and how difficult it was for her to do so. Mind you, I was in second grade at the time. She had such devastation in her voice as she relayed the tale to us, laboring over each word as she recounted finding the pack of cigarettes. Her response, though, is what has stuck with me over the years. She made her daughter sit down and smoke the entire pack at once, causing her poor daughter to throw up repeatedly. Cruel as this may have sounded to our seven year old ears, the message rang true. Her daughter, who was by then an adult, had never smoked another cigarette again.
This story was pretty indicative of Mrs. Goulette's style of teaching.
4. Have you considered how you end your essay?
Notice how both of the mentor essays end in specific moments in time. They also end with very short sentences.
Ending in a specific moment in time prevents you from making broad generalizations and cliche statements.
Consider a final appeal to the senses that might capture your dominant impression.
Consider something you do now or a thought you have now that reflects back on your person/place.
Consider using a very short sentence to end.
Ex: As I look at my own son, I think about whether I'd want him to be in Mrs. Goulette's classroom--whether I'd want him to have to deal with the desk dumping, the cigarette story, the backwards spelling bees. But then I think of everything else, and I decide. Absolutely.
5. Have you edited for comma rules, punctuation, capitalization, subject/verb agreement, apostrophes, spelling, etc.?
-Do you have SPECIFIC, clear, vivid examples, anecdotes, and/or direct quotations that illustrate your point?
-Do you show, not tell, or do you come right out and state how you feel?
(Ex of telling: I have so many great memories of this place; if there's one person I'll always remember, it's Mr. G.) Don't do this!
2. Have you made intentional selections about DIDLS? How do these choices contribute to your tone?
-What connotations do your words have?
-Have you used any figurative language? If so, to what effect?
-Have you varied sentence and paragraph lengths? Do you italicize words, use parenthesis, dashes, and/or quotation marks?
-Do you use powerful verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs? (Note: powerful does not necessarily mean big and fancy.)
-Do you create images that appeal to one or more of the senses?
-Have you been selective about the details you include? For example, if you are describing a place, you do not need to lead the reader through the place and describe EVERY detail that you see. Only describe the ones that pertain to your dominant impression. What you don't say can be just as powerful as what you do say.
3. Have you considered the way you begin your essay. You may want to begin by:
-Reflecting back:
Ex: The other day I was reading through some essays that I was going to use with my 10th grade classes; one of them got me thinking about Mrs. Goulette--my second grade teacher--and her unconventional teaching tactics. Here it is more than twenty five years later, and I still have vivid images of our backwards spelling bees standing on top of our desks. It prompted me to google her, to no avail.
-Jumping right into your description:
Mrs. Goulette's classroom was not your typical elementary school classroom. First of all, it was split between accelerated second graders and struggling third graders, something that probably wouldn't happen today. In fact, most things about Mrs. Goulette's style of teaching wouldn't fly in our modern day. She constantly singled kids out and embarrassed them. She used to dump the contents of our desks on the floor if they were messy; the unlucky student who had this happen to her (yes, I suffered this fate once) not only had to face the humiliation of watching the entire contents of her desk being spilled on the floor in front of her classmates, but she also would have to stand at recess. Kids would be lined up along the wall of the school at recess, wantonly watching as the other students played kickball and dodgeball.
-Reflect on a specific anecdote:
One of my clearest memories of Mrs. Goulette is when she told us about finding cigarettes in her daughter's purse. She spoke openly with us about her own struggles with smoking--how much she wanted to quit and how difficult it was for her to do so. Mind you, I was in second grade at the time. She had such devastation in her voice as she relayed the tale to us, laboring over each word as she recounted finding the pack of cigarettes. Her response, though, is what has stuck with me over the years. She made her daughter sit down and smoke the entire pack at once, causing her poor daughter to throw up repeatedly. Cruel as this may have sounded to our seven year old ears, the message rang true. Her daughter, who was by then an adult, had never smoked another cigarette again.
This story was pretty indicative of Mrs. Goulette's style of teaching.
4. Have you considered how you end your essay?
Notice how both of the mentor essays end in specific moments in time. They also end with very short sentences.
Ending in a specific moment in time prevents you from making broad generalizations and cliche statements.
Consider a final appeal to the senses that might capture your dominant impression.
Consider something you do now or a thought you have now that reflects back on your person/place.
Consider using a very short sentence to end.
Ex: As I look at my own son, I think about whether I'd want him to be in Mrs. Goulette's classroom--whether I'd want him to have to deal with the desk dumping, the cigarette story, the backwards spelling bees. But then I think of everything else, and I decide. Absolutely.
5. Have you edited for comma rules, punctuation, capitalization, subject/verb agreement, apostrophes, spelling, etc.?
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