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English Composition 1
Essay Assignment 1
Due Dates
ENG 1001-04 (M/W/F 1:00-1:50 p.m.)
Monday, January 28: Draft of at least 600 words due for peer critique.
Wednesday, February 6: Revised draft of at least 800 words due.
ENG 1001-05 (M/W 2:15-3:30 p.m.)
Monday, January 28: Draft of at least 600 words due for peer critique.
Wednesday, February 6: Revised draft of at least 800 words due.
Essay 1: Analysis of a Photograph or Painting
For Essay 1, you need to describe and analyze a
photograph or a painting of your own choosing in an essay of at least
800 words. You
can assume that your readers have seen the photograph or
painting that is the subject of your essay. They are familiar
with the photograph or painting but have not studied it as you
have. Your job is to help readers understand and appreciate the
photograph or painting. Your paper should describe the work
vividly and draw conclusions about the meaning that the work
seems to convey.
As with all of the essays for the course, your essay should
be written in a
formal voice and should have at
least five paragraphs, including an introduction with a clear
thesis statement and a conclusion with a restatement of that
thesis. The minimum required length of the revised draft is 800
words.
Choosing a Subject for your Essay
You may choose any photograph or painting as
your subject, with just one exception. Please do not choose
the photograph
Migrant Mother,
by Dorothea Lange, which is the subject that we use here to
illustrate
the writing process.
Try to choose a subject that interests you. You have
literally millions of subjects that you can choose from. As we all know,
there are paintings and photographs of just about everything imaginable.
You can choose a photograph that you took or that a friend or a
family member took, but please be careful if you take this approach. If you have
a highly personal subject, it might be a challenge to make that subject
interesting and meaningful to readers who do not know you. You are writing this
essay not just for yourself but for an audience made up of people who do not
know you. You have to think about what will be interesting and meaningful to
strangers.
The Internet is an excellent source for paintings and
photographs. Linked below are just a few of the many Web sites that feature photographs or
paintings. You may choose your subject from one of these Web sites, or you may
find it elsewhere. For additional resources, just try
searching the Internet with such search
words as "art," "paintings," or "photographs."
Your Description
Your essay should include
descriptions of the photograph or painting. You need facts to
support and develop your ideas and interpretations, and your
descriptions will be those facts. Do not try to describe
everything in the photograph or painting. Focus on describing
the important parts, the parts that help reveal the meaning
according to your interpretation and that help you support the
ideas about the work that you present.
Your descriptions will also help make your paper interesting
to readers. If you describe the specifics of the photograph or painting vividly and accurately,
your readers will be able to "see" exactly what you see based
only on your description.
To
help you describe your subject well, you should use specific and
concrete language, avoiding much vague and abstract language. You
might also consider using a few metaphors to describe the
subject, using something familiar to your readers to help you
describe something with which your readers may not be familiar.
For more information about
description, see the following resources:
Your Analysis
You will need to go beyond just describing the photograph or
painting. You also need to analyze and interpret it. Your description of the photograph or
painting should help lead you to discover its meaning, and the
descriptions will help you support the ideas about the subject
that you present.
Important! For each descriptive detail you consider
including in your essay, you should ask yourself a simple
question: "So what?" Why is what you are describing important?
What does it mean? In your essay, you should avoid including
descriptive details if you do not explain their importance.
While there may be no
"right" or "wrong" interpretation of the
painting or photograph you write about, there is quite a
difference between a weak and a strong interpretation. Your
analysis will be strong, and thus convincing to readers, if you
draw logical conclusions from the details, making clear
connections between your interpretation and the specific details
of the photograph or painting, and if you organize and explain
your ideas clearly and logically.
You do not have to be an expert
on photography or painting to write a strong essay for this
assignment! Don't worry about trying to use the jargon of an art
critic in your essay. Instead, work on demonstrating skills
essential to all effective writers: the ability to observe,
describe, analyze, think, and present ideas well.
Organizing Your Essay
For this essay, and for all essays in the course, you should follow the
guidelines for organizing and developing your ideas that are explained on the
Web pages linked below:
In this type of essay, it is usually most effective to begin each body paragraph
with some insight into the painting or photograph--some idea that you think is
suggested by the work. Then, in the rest of the paragraph, you would describe
the parts of the painting or photograph that you think suggest or support this
idea. This format is outlined below. Notice that this is the approach that the writer takes in the
sample essay on
Migrant Mother.
- Topic sentence
a sentence identifying the main idea about the photograph or painting to
be developed in the paragraph.
- Fact 1
a specific description of some aspect of the photograph or
painting that supports the idea in the topic sentence.
- Explanation
your explanation of how Fact 1 supports the
main idea in the topic sentence.
- Fact 2
a specific description of another aspect of the
photograph or painting that supports the idea in the topic sentence.
- Explanation
your explanation of how Fact 2 supports
the main idea in the topic sentence.
- Fact 3
a specific description of some aspect of the photograph or
painting that supports the idea in the topic sentence.
- Explanation
your explanation of how Fact 3 supports the
main idea in the topic sentence.
You can see this kind of organization better illustrated in some of the
course Web pages linked above.
The Writing Process
It is important to realize that, for most people, writing an essay is a
process that involves several distinct steps. The Web pages linked below
illustrate the steps that one writer takes to complete an essay about the
photograph Migrant Mother, by Dorothea Lange.
Please read these pages carefully and try to apply the concepts as you work on
your own essay.
Helpful Resources
The information below is
important for all of the essays that you will write in the
course, and you will need to demonstrate a familiarity with the
information on the web
pages to do well on your essays. You
should read the web pages linked below carefully:
- Expectations for All Essays: Obviously, it's important to be familiar
with the expectations for assignments.
- The
Proper Format for Essays: This page is especially
importance considering that you are working on your first
essay assignment in the course.
- Getting
Started on Essays: This page offers step-by-step
instructions to help you get started on your papers.
- Organizing
and Developing a Persuasive Essay: This page provides
vital information about organizing and developing persuasive
essays. This information applies to all
of the essays you write for the course.
- Organizing
and Developing Persuasive Paragraphs: This page provides
valuable information about organizing and developing each
body paragraph of a persuasive essay. The information on this page applies to all
of the essays you write for the course. Do your best to
understand this material and to apply it to your own writing!
- Evaluation
and Grading Criteria for Essays: This page tells you
what I look for when I evaluate papers and should
help you focus on strengthening different aspects of your
writing.
- Revision
Checklist: This page gives you a list of many specific
things to consider as you take your papers from rough drafts
to final drafts.
When I evaluate your essay, I
will assume that you have read the web pages linked above and
that you are familiar with the information presented on the pages, so
make sure to ask if you have any questions!
Please ask any questions that you have about this essay assignment!
This page was last updated on
January 08, 2008. Copyright Randy Rambo,
2007.