Links

Part 1 - Web Links

Writing Summaries
http://college.hmco.com/english/vandermey/college_writer/2e/resources/write_summary.html

Beginning the Writing Process
http://www.powa.org/discover/index.html

Forming Your Thesis Statement
http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/Thesis.html

Opening Your Draft
http://www.nutsandboltsguide.com/beginning.html

Developing the Middle
http://www.nutsandboltsguide.com/middle.htm

Ending Your Draft
http://www.nutsandboltsguide.com/ending.html

Revising Your Voice and Style
http://www.nutsandboltsguide.com/plainstyle.htm

Revising Collaboratively
http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/PeerReviews.html

Using the Writing Center
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~riceowl/

Avoiding Imprecise, Misleading, and Biased Words
http://www.bartleby.com/62/

Also, for help with specific word-choice challenges like wordiness, take this quiz.
http://college.hmco.com/cgi-bin/SaCGI.cgi/ace1app.cgi?FNC=AcePresent__Apresent_html___eng_elibrary49

Proofreading Your Writing
http://www.lynchburg.edu/writcntr/guide/drafting/proofing.htm

Improve Your Grade

Work with these documents and activities to master chapter learning objectives. Some content requires software plugins. Visit our Plugin Help Center for help with downloading plugins.

	Step-by-Step Writing Assignments
	Several mini-assignments will walk you through the writing process

	Visual Activities
	Reinforce your critical viewing skills with visual activities.

	Game
	This game is a fun way to help you learn how to revise an essay into a unified and coherently organized whole.

	Annotated Readings
	These pop-up annotations demonstrate how essays can be read critically.

Daily Writing Tips -- Writing Basics

Spell-Checkers

The Trouble with Spell-Checkers

Pome

1
I have a spelling checker -
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

2
Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.

3
A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when aye rime.

4
To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud.
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaws are knot aloud.

5
And now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know faults with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

6
Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed to bee a joule
The checker poured o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

7
That's why aye brake in two averse
By righting wants too pleas.
Sow now ewe sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear for pea seas!

Rhetorical Functions

Rhetorical Functions
1 What does X mean? (Definition)
2 What are the various features of X? (Description)
3 What are the component parts of X? (Simple Analysis)
4 How is X made or done? (Process Analysis)
5 How should X be made or done? (Directional Analysis)
6 What is the essential function of X? (Functional Analysis)
7 What are the causes of X? (Causal Analysis)
8 What are the consequences of X? (Causal Analysis)
9 What are the types of X? (Classification)
10 How is X like or unlike Y? (Comparison)
11 What is the present status of X? (Comparison)
12 What is the significance of X? (Interpretation)
13 What are the facts about X? (Reportage)
14 How did X happen? (Narration)
15 What kind of person is X? (Characterization/Profile)
16 What is my personal response to X? (Reflection)
17 What is my memory of X? (Reminiscence)
18 What is the value of X? (Evaluation)
19 What are the essential major points or features of X? (summary)
20 What case can be made for or against X? (Persuasion)

Northing -- Annie Dillard

Narration and Description

The following passage is from “Northing,” a chapter in Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim

at Tinker Creek. In it, the author vividly describes monarch butterflies and their

migration.

Northing

A few days later the monarchs hit. I saw one, and then another, and

then others all day long, before I consciously understood that I was

witnessing a migration, and it wasn’t until another two weeks had passed

that I realized the enormity of what I had seen.

Each of these butterflies, the fruit of two or three broods of this

summer, had hatched successfully from one of those emerald cases that

Teale’s caterpillar had been about to form when the parasitic larvae snapped

it limp, eating their way out of its side. They had hatched, many of them,

just before a thunderstorm, when winds lifted the silver leaves of trees and

birds sought the shelter of shrubbery, uttering cries. They were butterflies,

going south to the Gulf states or farther, and some of them had come from

Hudson’s Bay.

Monarchs were everywhere. They skittered and bobbed, rested in the

air, lolled on the dust—but with none of their usual insouciance. They had

but one unwearying thought: South. I watched from my study window:

three, four . . . eighteen, nineteen, one every few seconds, and some in

tandem. They came fanning straight toward my window from the

northwest, and from the northeast, materializing from behind the tips of

high hemlocks, where Polaris hangs by night. They appeared as Indian

horsemen appear in movies: first dotted, then massed, silent, at the rim

of a hill.

Each monarch butterfly had a brittle black body and deep orange wings

limned and looped in black bands. A monarch at rest looks like a fleck of

tiger, stilled and wide-eyed. A monarch in flight looks like an autumn leaf

with a will, vitalized and cast upon the air from which it seems to suck some

thin sugar of energy, some leaf-life or sap. As each one climbed up the air

outside my window, I could see the more delicate, ventral surfaces of its

wings, and I had a sense of bunched legs and straining thorax, but I could

never focus well into the flapping and jerking before it vaulted up past the

window and out of sight over my head.

I walked out and saw a monarch do a wonderful thing: it climbed a hill

without twitching a muscle. I was standing at the bridge over Tinker Creek,

at the southern foot of a very steep hill. The monarch beat its way beside

me over the bridge at eye level, and then, flailing its wings exhaustedly,

ascended straight up in the air. It rose vertically to the enormous height of

a bankside sycamore’s crown. Then, fixing its wings at a precise angle, it

glided up the steep road, losing altitude extremely slowly, climbing by

checking its fall, until it came to rest at a puddle in front of the house at the

top of the hill.

I followed. It panted, skirmished briefly westward, and then, returning

to the puddle, began its assault on the house. It struggled almost straight up

the air next to the two-story brick wall, and then scaled the roof. Wasting

no effort, it followed the roof ’s own slope, from a distance of two inches.

Puff, and it was out of sight. I wondered how many more hills and houses

it would have to climb before it could rest. From the force of its will it

would seem it could flutter through the walls.

Monarchs are “tough and powerful, as butterflies go.” They fly over

Lake Superior without resting; in fact, observers there have discovered a

curious thing. Instead of flying directly south, the monarchs crossing high

over the water take an inexplicable turn toward the east. Then when they

reach an invisible point, they all veer south again. Each successive swarm

repeats this mysterious dogleg movement, year after year. Entomologists

actually think that the butterflies might be “remembering” the position of a

long-gone, looming glacier. In another book I read that geologists think

that Lake Superior marks the site of the highest mountain that ever existed

on this continent. I don’t know. I’d like to see it. Or I’d like to be it, to feel

when to turn. At night on land migrating monarchs slumber on certain

trees, hung in festoons with wings folded together, thick on the trees and

shaggy as bearskin.

Monarchs have always been assumed to taste terribly bitter, because of

the acrid milkweed on which the caterpillars feed. You always run into

monarchs and viceroys when you read about mimicry: viceroys look

enough like monarchs that keen-eyed birds who have tasted monarchs once

will avoid the viceroys as well. New studies

indicate that milkweed-fed monarchs are

not so much evil-tasting as literally nauseating,

since milkweed contains “heart poisons

similar to digitalis” that make the bird ill.

Personally, I like an experiment performed

by an entomologist with real spirit. He had

heard all his life, as I have, that monarchs

taste unforgettably bitter, so he tried some.

“To conduct what was in fact a field experiment

the doctor first went South, and he ate

a number of monarchs in the field. . . . The

monarch butterfly, Dr. Urquhart learned,

has no more flavor than dried toast.” Dried

toast? It was hard for me, throughout the monarch migration, in the middle

of all that beauty and real splendor, to fight down the thought that what

It is easy to coax a dying or exhausted butterfly onto your finger. I saw

a monarch walking across a gas station lot; it was walking south. I placed

my index finger in its path, and it clambered aboard and let me lift it to my

face. Its wings were faded but unmarked by hazard; a veneer of velvet

caught the light and hinted at the frailest depth of lapped scales. It was a

male; his legs clutching my finger were short and atrophied; they clasped my

finger with a spread fragility, a fineness as of some low note of emotion or

pure strain of spirit, scarcely perceived. And I knew that those feet were

actually tasting me, sipping with sensitive organs the vapor of my finger’s

skin: butterflies taste with their feet. All the time he held me, he opened and

closed his glorious wings, senselessly, as if sighing.

The closing of his wings fanned an almost imperceptible redolence

at my face, and I leaned closer. I could barely scent a sweetness, I could

almost name it . . . fireflies, sparklers—honeysuckle. He smelled like honeysuckle;

I couldn’t believe it. I knew that many male butterflies exuded

distinctive odors from special scent glands, but I thought that only laboratory

instruments could detect those odors compounded of many,

many butterflies. I had read a list of the improbable scents of butterflies:

sandalwood, chocolate, heliotrope, sweet pea. Now this live creature here

on my finger had an odor that even I could sense—this flap actually

smelled, this chip that actually took its temperature from the air like any

envelope or hammer, this programmed wisp of spread horn. And he

smelled of honeysuckle. Why not caribou hoof or Labrador tea, tundra

lichen or dwarf willow, the brine of Hudson’s Bay or the vapor of rivers

milky with fine-ground glacial silt? This honeysuckle was an odor already

only half-remembered, as breath of the summer past, the Lucas cliffs and

overgrown fence by Tinker Creek, a drugged sweetness that had almost

cloyed on those moisture-laden nights, now refined to a wary trickle in the

air, a distillation pure and rare, scarcely known and mostly lost, and heading

south.

I walked him across the gas station lot and lowered him into a field. He

took to the air, pulsing and gliding; he lighted on sassafras, and I lost him.

For weeks I found paired monarch wings, bodiless, on the grass or on

the road. I collected one such wing and freed it of its scales; first I rubbed

it between my fingers, and then I stroked it gently with the tip of an infant’s

silver spoon. What I had at the end of this delicate labor is lying here on this

study desk: a kind of resilient scaffolding, like the webbing over a hot-air

balloon, black veins stretching the merest something across the nothingness

it plies. The integument itself is perfectly transparent; through it I can read

the smallest print. It is as thin as the skin peeled from sunburn, and as

tough as a parchment of fleeced buffalo hide. The butterflies that were eaten

here in the valley, leaving us their wings, were, however, few: most lived to

follow the valley south.

9

The migration lasted in full force for five days. For those five days I was

inundated, drained. The air was alive and unwinding. Time itself was a

scroll unraveled, curved and still quivering on a table or altar stone. The

monarchs clattered in the air, burnished like throngs of pennies, here’s one,

and here’s one, and more, and more. They flapped and floundered; they

thrust, splitting the air like the keels of canoes, quickened and fleet.

It looked as though the leaves of the autumn forest had taken flight, and

were pouring down the valley like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, all the leaves

of hardwoods from here to Hudson’s Bay. It was as if the season’s color were

draining away like lifeblood, as if the year were molting and shedding. The

year was rolling down, and a vital curve had been reached, the lift that gives

way to headlong rush. And when the monarchs had passed and were gone,

the skies were vacant, the air poised. The dark night into which the year was

plunging was not a sleep but an awakening, a new and necessary austerity,

the sparer climate for which I longed. The shed trees were brittle and still,

the creek light and cold, and my spirit holding its breath. ■

Narration, Description, and Reflection Topics

Narration, Description, and Reflection

Personal Reminiscences
First, Most, Special,

First

My first fight.
My first encounter with the law.
My first encounter with racial discrimination.
My first job.
My first spanking. (On being punished for the first time.)
My first dollar.
My first ten years were the hardest.

Most

My most important decision and why I made it.
My most embarrassing moment.
The most stupid thing I ever did.
My most serious accident.
My narrowest escape.
The longest minute I ever spent.
The wisest thing I ever did.

Special
Prize memory of the year. (Regrets of the year.)
A Christmas thrill. (Christmas this year.)
Thoughts on New Year's Eve.
An unforgettable experience.
The fun of being sick.
Moving into a strange town.
Learning to like vegetables (or other foods).
One of life's comedies (or tragedies) in which I played a star part.
Things I have lost.
An inexpensive good time.
An experiment I once tried.
My big moment.
Happy ending
A mistake I vow never to repeat. (I'll never do that again.)
The dog (or other pet) in my life.
I sold papers. (A job I have held.) (My summer job.)
Musical memories. (Songs my mother taught me.)

Family
Memories of home.
What I learned from Dad.
A tradition in our family (neighborhood, section, state or country.)
How my family celebrates Easter (or some other holiday).
The origin of my family name.
My ancestors. (Page from my family history.)
Meet the family.
What I have inherited.

Personal Reactions
It's easy to blame others.
A clear conscience is better (worse) than popularity.
Is pride a primitive trait?
What I would do if I knew I would lose my sight tomorrow?
Is maturity a relative thing?
The mental blindness of the human race.
What is more beautiful-the simple or the ornate?
The continuity of human experience.
The real me.
Worry.
How am I doing?
Why I dislike my name.
Why... is my favorite sport.
Why I go to chute.
Why I shall go to college.
Why... is my favorite picture.
Why I do (not) play cards.
Why I like poetry.
Why I like music.
Why I believe in immortality.
Why I do not believe in divorce.
Why I want to be a....
Why I like to read novels.
Why I don't like comic strips.
My idea of hard work.
My idea of good dinner.
My idea of hard work.
My idea of a good course.
My idea of gentleman (or a lady).
My idea of a dull evening.
My idea of a perfect school.
How colors affect me.
How I feel in a dentist's chair.
How I feel when I have not prepared a lesson (or for an exam).
How I judge character.
How I read a newspaper.
How can I find time to study?
How new clothes affect me.
How much am I influenced by advertising?
How I treat nosy people.
What animal I should like to be for a day.
What I like in music or art.
What I get out of music.
What religion means to me.
What's wrong with my hometown.
What I want from life.
What I think about athletics.
What I really enjoy doing.
If I were president.
Where am I going?
If I had but three days to live.
If I were mayor of my hometown.
My future as I see it.
My favorite breed of dog.
My favorite hero in fiction.
My hobby and why I like it.
My book (play, movie) of the year.
My favorite subject.
The finest movie I have ever seen.

My World
What "bugs" me most.
What do you think are the enemies of mankind?
Should we go to the moon (or any other planet)?
What is your opinion of dissenters?.
The importance of independence.
Poverty and happiness.
Are movies and TV stereotyping us today.
Is dictatorship ever justified?
A catalog of likes and dislikes.
I would like to change and why...
If I could, I would like to...
I dislike...
I think... is wrong (or right).
If only...
Happiness is...
...and I just don't agree.
If I received a thousand dollars...
I remember...

Reminiscences And Reactions
Adolescence-a preparation for love.
After a long interval (revisiting a scene that holds special meaning
A belief I had when I was very young.
An action and my reaction.
The best team.
Dates-dating.
The day I received my driver's license.
An effective way to envision history is to read fiction.
A fear I overcame.
The generation gap.
I cut my hair.
I had to decide.
I saw it happen: why did it?
In the presence of my peers.
The joys of being a car owner.
The less brilliant moments in my life.
The moon-what next?
My biggest gripe.
My encounters with racial discrimination.
My experiences as a babysitter.
My first semester in high school.
My idea of a perfect day.
My opinion of poetry.
One of my favorite movies.
One of my favorite television shows.
On learning.....
An open letter to my parents.
A person to whom I am grateful.
The relevancy of school.
Rewards of nature.
Those were the good old days.
Three cars I would never own.
Three things worse than death.
A typical day in my life.
What I like best about summer.
What I have learned about people over... vacation.
What I dislike most about Christmas (or some other holiday).
What would have happened if....
When I feel most independent.
Why I'd change a rule in my school.
Why I like rock music.
The world in which I live.
How the English program at ... University should be changed.
Black is beautiful.
If I were suddenly blind.
When a car cuts me off on the freeway...
My .... was stolen.
I catch a thief.
When I failed the ....exam.
Where I can find some peace and quiet.

Familiar Essay Topics

Pet peeves.
Life begins at 10 p.m.
An adventure in friendship.
The virtues of idleness.
Pages from my family history.
I'd like to write a book.
Being contented.
Bargain shopping.
Crushes and hero-worship.
The most valuable thing I have learned.
An important decision.
Local crudities (or curiosities).
Fire!
A curious dream.
While the jukebox blares.
The art of conversation.
I should have known.
On favorite colors.
Let me cry on your shoulder.
Lest we forget.
Plot for murder.
Worrying is good for you.
Going around in circles.
Unnatural character in literature.
A contribution to better living.
If an ancient Greek came to Chicago (or any other place).
Shoe personality.
New brooms raise a great dust.
Nurses are angels.
On a rainy day.
Pride before a fall.
The tribulations of a junior high school student.
Soap operas.
Why all the excitement?
... night on the radio.
Sidewalk hogs.
Tied to the apron strings.
Table manners.
Mental cruelty.
What a home ought to be.
Many brave hearts.
Library notes.
Radios commercials.
Why people have hobbies.
Borrowing and lending.
The life of a biggy bank.
The kinds of friends who wear well.
Local weather.
Maturity has its drawbacks.
On a shoestring.
A real champion.
Going, going, gone.
The blue ribbon.
The world in which I live.
Cats are a nuisance (blessing).
The advantages of being a hermit.
"Look for the silver lining."
Borrowing.
Today's slang.
The value of pessimism.
Choosing a hat.
Different ways of washing dishes.
Telling fortunes.
On a dog.
The art of being friendly.
If I had twenty-four hours to live.
What it means to be poor.
Saturday night.
Things are tough all over.
Twins.
Skeleton in the closet.
Cosmetics: theoretical and applied.
Reading for pleasure.
Quizzes
What is tact?
Amateur dramatics.
Mother picks a school for Mortimer.
Brotherly love.
Fishing.
My idol.
What is a dog's life?
How intelligent is a horse?
Baby-tending, a harrowing job.
If anyone told the truth.
It's fun to observe people.
If we could read each other's minds
They did it again
Facing facts in daily life.
A good spectator.
Amusement crazy.
Horror movies.
The early worm passes more examinations.
A recipe for a satisfactory life.
Christmas (holiday) gifts are a necessary evil.
A tale told by . . . (some relative).
The last call.
Once upon a time.
Dangerous living.
Chivalry is still alive.
"The best laid schemes. . . ."
Books which have become movies.
Is it important to know one's weaknesses?
Clothes do not make the man.
Bad habits and how to enjoy them.
The picture of life one gets from movies.
Counting chickens before they are hatched.
Useful pets.
Good taste.
Liars should have good memories.
It's a wonderful life.
A fly in the ointment.
Mice.
The jolly company.
Green pastures.
Practical people.
Midnight.
Reputation.
The tables turned.
Old age.
Ghosts.
Things old and new.
The key.
A pipe and slippers.
Come and get it.
The unknown.
The circus comes to town.
Better late than never.
Radio jingles.
A pair of gloves.
Moustaches.
Life on the farm.
Life in the city.
On hearing an alarm clock.
My correspondence.
The value of pets.
Superstitious practices.
Who is my neighbor?
Misleading labels.
What is success in life?
What is sportsmanship?
Things old and new.
The key.
A pipe and slippers.
Come and get it.
The unknown.
The circus comes to town.
Better late than never.
Radio jingles.
A pair of gloves.
Moustaches.
Life on the farm.
Life in the city.
On hearing an alarm clock.
My correspondence.
The value of pets.
Superstitious practices.
Who is my neighbor?
Misleading labels.
What is success in life?
What is sportsmanship?
My definition of tolerance.
What is humor?
What liberty means to me.
The life and times of ...
My favorite computer game.
Computers are for the birds!
Food glorious food.
Freedom and me.
Pets resemble their owners or visa versa?

Character Sketch Topics

Daydreamer.
Jukebox addict.
Taxi driver.
The practical joker.
The proud parent.
The "successful" man or woman.
Master of ceremonies.
The American woman.
Radio personality.
The drunkard.
The student.
Baby-sitter.
Preacher's son (or daughter).
Student waiter.
Camp counselor.
The movie detective.
Do-gooder.
The local policeman.
Teachers who bore me.
Little old lady.
A personal appearance.
Meet Joe Doe (the average American).
My most interesting friend.
The person I admire most.
Grandfather.
The man who never had a chance.
The most abused public servant.
A historical character.
An interesting public personality.
A character from fiction I should like to meet.
My favorite hero/heroine.
Brothers under the skin.
Eyes of blue.
From the other side of the tracks.
A person I have almost forgotten.
My friend,... (someone of a different race or nationality).
A person I can't bear.
My favorite teacher (relative, commentator).
The most wonderful person I know.
A first-rate teacher.
My distinguished ancestor.
My best friend.
A person who has influenced my life.
What I learned from Dad. (In defense of Dad.) (My Dad.)
The most prominent citizen in my hometown.
A person I will never forget.
A brief sketch of myself (any age, any mood).
Meet the Doc.



Fantasy
Fantasies of childhood.
How I'd change a book if I had written it.
The house of tomorrow.
I wish I had built......
I wish I had known.....
I wish I had lived in the time of....
If I were a inanimate object.
I wish I had witnessed...
A letter I would like to write ( but never send).
My dream vacation.
My trip to the moon.
My medieval romance.
Land of no sleep.
Then the computer said to me...
A dream inside a dream.
All the money in the world.

Description Topics


The most beautiful place I know.
A tropical sunset.
Spring in the country.
Scenic beauty nearby.
A storm. (A snow storm.)
Across the United States by commuter train.
A scene for a photographer.
January.
What my study table looks like.
The main street of my home town (describing stores, people, etc.)
Classroom impression.
Getting a meal in a crowded restaurant.
An old shop.
A plan for a recreation room.
The state (county) fair.
Interesting people or unusual customs in . . . .
Sounds at night.
In a strange land (real or imaginary).
With pen and brush.
Interior of a business house (barber shop, music store, etc.).
Setting of a novel or a play.
A lonesome road.
Colors in everyday life.
Snowfall.
An impressive sight.
Rural England (France, Belgium, etc.) as I saw it.
Winter in . . . .
A local building (interior or exterior).
Full moon.
School sounds.
The most horrible sight I ever saw.
A meal at a quick-lunch counter.
A typical railway station.
Home of a famous person.
My favorite haunt.
An efficient kitchen.
A favorite restaurant.
Saturday night in . . . .
Farm sale.
A great engineering (or other) project.
A street scene.
Strolling down Michigan Boulevard (Fifth Avenue, Main Street, etc.).
The hometown drugstore.
A trip on a 747.
Sunday dinner. (Family dinner.)
The auto of the future.
Our home.
A mysterious sound.
Bargain day.
The art of seeing things.
The well-dressed man or woman.
The most disreputable building I ever saw.
An interesting holiday in . . . .
Scene after victory.
Cheering section.
The look and feel of dusk.
Clouds.
Footsteps.
A train whistle.
Is there such a thing as silence?
Inventions I haven't yet perfected.
Write a letter in the role of a character from a book recently read.
Hunting a unicorn.
Inside Mrs. Murphy's purse.
The window.
The American of the seventies.
A college campus.
Customs in our school.
My room.
The ideal home, room.
Current costumes.
My mathematics class.
Seven o'clock Saturday night.
Dancers.
Description of a foreign city.
The music . . . festival.
The ideal Illinois farm.
Thanksgiving kitchen (or table).
An athlete's view of the opposing team.
Your garden in the fall (or any other season).
A drop of water.
A classroom bell.
An airplane overhead.
A bus going uphill.
An incident through the eyes of an inanimate object.
How to bathe a dragon.
How to eat a grapefruit.
The king on the mountain.
Automobile horns.
Comparison of two photographers of the same subject.
A dance.
Description of Christmas card.
Faces.
A game.
Hypocrisy.
The inner city.
A list of choices, such as, wall, coat, etc. to write an impression of.
My sense of smell- I would know it with my eyes closed.
Nights of the streets of . . .
This picture makes me think or feel like . . .
Profiles in courage.
View from a window (various windows and neighborhoods).
What color is love?
What is a man?
Who is they?
The year 2222.
Today's heroes.
Description of a dream (nightmare) - real or fictional.
I love San Francisco (any city).
Kinds of doors.
This music reflects . . . .
My car.
My favorite building.
My world would include . . .
Sounds.
Walls and fences.
What does happiness taste like?

Description Essay Reader-Response Sheet

Description Essay

Reader-Response Sheet

Writer’s name: ________________________________

Reader’s name: _______________________________

As the writer, my major concerns/questions for my readers are:

Reader, please respond to each question.

1. What is the writer’s topic?

2. What is/are the dominant impression(s) the writer seems to be making? If there is a sentence that states the dominant impression, write it here. If there is not a sentence that states the dominant impression, write what you believe it is.

3. Has the writer used a subjective or objective perspective? What makes the choice of perspective work well in the essay?

4. What makes the opening effective? How might it be made more effective?

5. What do you find to be most effective about the essay as a whole?

6. Discuss the level and breadth of detail used—where does the writer use language effectively? Where does she/he use sensory images? Which senses does the writer appeal to? Where has the writer used active verbs?

7. Make some suggestions for increasing the level and breadth of detail. Please make specific references to the essay.

8. What two or three specific questions do you have for the writer?

9. Please circle any words that you suspect are misspelled or are typos—DON’T CORRECT THEM!

10. Indicate with “frag” any sentence fragments you suspect or find.

11. Indicated with “r-o” any comma splices or fused sentences that you suspect or find.

12. Please check off each of the following items that apply:

_____ proper heading (you, me, class, date)

_____ a title that describes the contents of the essay

_____ 2 full pages minimum length

_____ a good opening gambit

_____ appeals to all the senses

_____sight

_____sound

_____smell

_____taste

_____touch

_____ uses strong verbs

_____ uses at least one simile or metaphor