Essay 1 Narrative Argument 1

Composition II
Eric Sack
Fall 2014
Essay 1 - Narrative Argument
Write an essay that implies a clear claim and uses your own first-hand experience for support/evidence. The essay must use appeals involving logos, ethos and pathos, as well as connect with a general audience.
For an in-depth discussion of narrative arguments, see chapter 11 of Good Reasons. According to the book, narrative arguments rely on concrete individual stories rather than abstract statistics; they allow the readers to draw their own conclusions; and they should strike readers as both truthful and representative of larger issues. Chapter 11 provides helpful tips on finding good topics and maps out an effective process to create a narrative argument (see 166-167).
You may want to use the same topic for this essay as for Essays #3 and #4. To explore good subjects for papers in this class, look also at Good Reasons chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Your basic goal in this paper should be – at least in part – to persuade readers through narrative about a debatable issue. To achieve this goal, consider all aspects of the "rhetorical triangle" described in chapter 5 of The Everyday Writer and Chapter 11 of Good Reasons. What is your purpose in sharing this experience? What questions will you be answering for your audience? How might your audience be sympathetic and/or resistant to your story’s argument? What is the social context that your story occurs within?
For examples of narrative arguments, see Kristof’s “On the Ground with a ‘Gap Year’” essay that starts on page 169 in Good Reasons. Also, directly below this file in our Moodle shell, you’ll see two other examples, including Orwell’s “A Hanging” and Dumas’ “The F Word.”
Comp II tries to offer opportunities for you to write about topics with close relevance to your life, rather than a distant, library-based research topic that often results in a patchwork of what other people have to say. The Narrative Argument Essay provides a way to do this. It does not require any research. Instead, it draws on your own first-hand, lived experience for evidence. If you want to use a pertinent statistic or quote, that's OK; however, an essay with extensive research will not meet the essay requirements.
Please use MLA formatting -- Pagination goes in top right ------------------> lastname
Your Name
Eric Sack
Composition II
Essay 1 – Narrative Argumention
Day, month, year this draft was created (date will change, depending on draft)
Number of words in this draft (not in the assignment).

Important Deadlines:
Tues. Oct. 14 – Response Paper 1 due at beginning of class
Thur. Oct. 16 – Essay 1 peer review workshop. Bring your first draft to class to share.
Fri. Oct. 17 – Optional: Smarthinking submission/Writing Center session completed
Thur. Oct. 23 – Final draft due at beginning of class. Please bring all versions of your essay, as well as other related work such as Workshop responses and Smarthinking files, and arrange in chronological order with the earliest work on the bottom and latest version on top.
Grading: As with all of our four formal essays, I will be using a rubric to evaluate the final version of your personal essay. Use this rubric to guide you during your writing process.
Does It Well = 3
Does It = 2
Does It Somewhat = 1
Doesn’t Do It = 0
Procedures: All deadlines met; at least 1,000 words; correct heading and format; Essay 2a, peer responses, Smarthinking/Writing Center, turnitin.com responses are all handed in with final version.
Introduction: Thoughtful and apt title; interesting hook to get readers involved; doesn’t “come out of thin air” but provides a sense of context; provides (either implicitly or explicitly) a claim; builds ethos toward writer.
Organization: internal coherence helps build impact of narrative; transitions lead readers on persuasive journey through the narrative.
Body: narrative features used effectively (setting, characters, action, concrete detail, conflict, resolution, time sequencing); specifics contribute to larger goal; each section/episode contributes to overall goal.
Conclusion: satisfying sense of resolution; narrative appears truthful and representative of larger issues; thematic elements from introduction are reinforced without simply being restated (e.g. in Kristof’s “On the Ground with a ‘Gap Year’” on page 169 of GR, the introduction mentions Tibetan monks. In the conclusion, he returns to the monastery in order to reinforce the same motif).
Mechanics: Conforms to standard academic English; grammar, punctuation, spelling, and usage add to effectiveness and don’t distract; formatted in MLA.