Essay #4 Common Application

In your writer’s notebook:

Are you the type of person who is “part of the problem,” or “part of the solution”? What kinds of things would you change, if you could, about yourself? your family? your school? the world?

Agenda/Objectives

• Discuss Essay 4 prompt

• Identify narrative techniques, strong transitions, and a coherent outcome/conclusion in an essay

• Plan and start writing essay appropriate for a college admissions panel (draft due next class, final draft due class after that)

Answer the prompt directly and completelyEssay 4 Prompt:

Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma-anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could take to identify a solution.

Break it down: What are the key words in the prompt?

Answer the prompt directly and completely

Essay 4 Prompt:

Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma-anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could take to identify a solution.

Ideas

ACADEMIC:•Curriculum •Scheduling•Technology•Grading Scale

EXTRACURRICULAR:•Sports eligibility •The cost of prom tickets•Homecoming court selection

PERSONAL: •Getting to school on-time•Earning a driver’s license•Eating a healthy diet/working out

Narrative Techniques

Imagery/Sensory Detail -visually descriptive or figurative language

Vivid Verbs and Modifiers - descriptive verbs and modifiers substituted for boring ones

Metaphor/Simile - a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared. A simile uses the word “like” or “as”

Dialogue - written or spoken exchange between two or more people

Flashback/Flash forward – an interruption of chronological sequence of a story

Essay Samples Identify THREE narrative techniques that this author used in

the essay to make it dynamic (dialogue, imagery, vivid language, metaphor/simile flashback/flash forward).

Identify TWO transitions that the author used.

Identify ONE conclusion or outcome in the narrative.

Also…

Identify what the author wants the admissions committee to know about him/her from the essay.

In your essay…

Use at least three narrative techniques to make it dynamic.

Use transitions to make the essay cohesive.

Have an identifiable conclusion or outcome

Be able to tell me what you want the admissions committee to know about you from the essay