This past week I have been working on a
close-reading essay for one of my other classes. It’s the first close-reading
essay I have written, and although it is not extremely different from a full
literary analysis (other than the fact that it focuses on a very short section
of the work), I have still been looking up more information about the structure
and content of such an essay. The assignment handout asks students to “choose 1
compelling theme, issue or question we’ve discussed over the past few weeks and
address it by close reading a short, 3-5 page section” of the novel. “Also,” it
reads, “you will likely want to pay attention to such elements as sentence
structure, style, imagery, figurative language, word choice, and maybe even
grammar and punctuation.” It then lists traits of “an excellent close-reading
essay,” including “a clear thesis statement” and “multiple examples from the
passage.” This assignment has taken more effort on my part because of my
unfamiliarity with this kind of paper, and has left me wondering why I have
never seen example essays used in the classroom or in the Writing Center.
First, let me say that this post is based on my
personal experiences, and that there may very well be example essays used in
other classes or even in the Writing Center. If this is true, I would love to
hear about them and their use in a learning environment.
Anyway, as I was working on this assignment, I
realized that assignment sheets do not always help students to know what is
needed to write a good essay, especially for those unfamiliar with that specific
type of paper. The lists of requirements given on such sheets are often quite
general, and could leave many students wondering where to start. An attempt to
complete an essay strictly according to the information given could still be
far from what is expected by the professor. For these reasons, I think the use
of example essays may help students to grow as writers. Such examples would
give students who struggle with basic structural or content issues an idea of
what makes a good paper. Of course, the example used wouldn’t need to be an
essay of the same topic (probably shouldn’t
be, actually), but I think just seeing how someone formed his or her ideas
into a particular type of essay may be more helpful than a mere list of
requirements. I do not mean “example” as in a model essay format copied by the
student—perhaps it would be better to show a few different papers to give an
idea of the variety of possibilities while still giving the student writer an
idea of how and why each paper was successful. Still, I am sure the use of
examples would only be possible for certain kinds of papers (more analytical or
technical ones would work well while creative ones may not).
Have any of you ever had a
professor provide an example paper to show students what is expected of an
assignment? Are there any such examples used in the Writing Center that I just
don’t know about? If the answer to either of these questions is “no,” then why
are examples not used?
Much like you, I've never had a professor show us examples of good work that I can think of. I think examples aren't used because professors are concerned that the students will take the example as exactly what they should do. But I agree with you that examples would be very helpful for when you're not used to writing that style of paper!
ReplyDeleteWe do use some samples here, Jennifer, and I try to make it a point to ask faculty for samples whenever they bring in a specific assignment. I agree that it can be an excellent resource for students (and I think I learn about new genres most easily by reading some samples). Not all faculty always have examples, though, and if the assignment is on the same text or movie or source, then they might well hesitate to offer a sample. I have also seen some samples used in class (there's a neat one floating around Witt that is annotated).
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