University of Life Writing Center

UPDATE: AUTOMATIC 5 POINTS OFF for anything that doesn’t use good paragraph breaks.

This assignment will be worth 20 - 30 points instead of the usual 10 - 15 as the other writing skills. You’ll also get an extra couple days to work on it. It’s due next Wednesday, October 29.

500 words this time, and employ the following skills:

1. Use paragraphs to emphasize main points.

2. Use sentence variety to create both tension and relaxation.

3. Use word sounds to create both tension and relaxation.

4. Feel free to break any rules to enhance these effects, though this is not required.

In other words, your job is to tell a story or describe an event (or just a concept, if you think you can pull it off) that makes readers feel tense in some parts and relaxed in others.

20 points: clear grasp of contrast skills, which are used throughout the assignment. Some change of tone is created by the use of these skills. Nowhere does contrast work against the story.

25 points: in between 20 and 30 (I know, I know, to all you math majors, that’s obvious).

30 points: excellent display of contrast skills. Strong contrasting tones are created.

400 words min.

Some snippet of a story/event including dialogue between at least two people.

Use the skills outlined in class.

10 points for at least 8 interchanges (quotes) with a good amount of other elements (description, action, expressions, etc.)

15 points if the characterization comes across strong and clear for both (or at least 2) characters, and if the overall story is clear and easy to follow.

Descriptive passage (you can recycle your concrete details or comparison assignment if you want).

400 words.

Grading: 10 sensory detail = 10 points. If at least 5 produce a sensory reaction = 15 points.

Due next Wednesday, October 15.

As with all graded assignments, turn it in both electronically AND a paper copy.

You may use the same story/description you write for both the Extended Comparison and Concrete Details assignment - just be sure to revise and tailor it to each specific assignment.

There’s an example of the extended comparison on the utahvalleyreview.com forum if you want to see one.

Write a 500-word description of an event (or object) with at least 25 concrete details and at least 2 abstractions.

That will get you the 10 points for “good.”

To get the 15 points for “great,” have several spots where it’s “thick” with concrete details.

Example (abstractions in bold, concrete details underlined):

Note that the first half only has a few concretes scattered here and there (good) while the second half has a lot more concretes per idea (great…or getting there).

Eight years old. I had waited for this moment all my life. Eight. I was a big boy now. At last! Now my parents would let me watch the Simpsons. Now my parents would let me stay up past 7 p.m. Now maybe I could decide whether or not to eat my vegetables, pick my own friends, and best of all, not have to wear underoos anymore.

“You’re unusually quiet,” my mother said as my friends filed in through the front door for my party. I didn’t answer. My eyes remained front and center. The cause of my reticence would appear soon enough. Soon I would begin the process of choosing my own friends by ejecting all those who had ever caused me pain.

I always hated that front door. Rather than being solid wood or metal, nearly the whole door was taken up by a huge sheet of glass. The glass had some frilly design etched in it, but what was the point? Anyone walking down the street – or especially stepping onto our front porch – could look right into our house. “Why not take down all the walls, mom?” I asked repeatedly inside my own head. “Why not just put up glass walls so everyone can watch us 24-7?”

Carla stepped inside and quickly found a spot to sit down on our old, floral-patterned couch. Carla and her dark brown pig tails. Carla and her big brown spying eyes. Carla had looked through or faux door last summer and seen me dancing in the living room. When word spread through the school that I was dancing by myself – if you don’t count the vacuum cleaner I was swinging back and forth in time to the Beach Boys song on the radio – the guys stopped picking me first for dodgeball and pomp. “Dancing King,” they called me.

Assignment: Write a 500-word (min - that’s about 1/2 page single spaced) extended comparison, spreading the comparison throughout. You’ll be writing about one item and comparing it to another. Make at least 4 good references to the second object. Use similees, metaphors and/or allusions.

“Good” means it adds value to the description without causing other problems as we discussed in class. If you’re unable to come up with 4 good points to compare, at least do 2 good ones and 4 okay ones. If you can’t do that, step back and pick a different set of items to compare.

Due Date: Wednesday, October 7. I’ll need two examples to read/critique on Monday (you can then revise and turn it in for your grade on Wednesday). If you’d like to use yours for this, please submit it by Sunday night.

Grading: 10 points for doing a good job = the comparison made the description more interesting and informative without confusing the readers, 15 for a great job = the comparisons added a ton of value and make it a lot more interesting. Feel free to underline each comparison.

Step by step instructions:

1. Brainstorm a list of items to make a comparison of. For ideas, begin with a list of common places and items/events/etc. you’d find there. Select one of those items.

2. Make a biiiig list of attributes of that item. Size, shape, emotional impact, value, usage, etc.

3. List a bunch of items that share *some* of those attributes. Pick something from this list to compare to the item in step 1.

4. Freewrite/brainstorm a ton of things you could say in your comparison, THEN actually write the thing out.

For even more explanation and examples, read through the “Comparison” links to the left. I haven’t yet formatted them all pretty and added images, but the info is there.

Here’s a short example: “First Born” by Anonymous

A baby is born. The baby is ours. We look carefully at our newborn. We turn it over. We hold it up to the light. We rummage through the blankets. No matter how thoroughly we look,  here just doesn’t seem to be an owner’s manual.
We feel as though we have been given a new toy that is so technically advanced we have no idea what to do with it. It starts to make noise. Where is the button we push to make the noise stop? What do we do now?
We want the very best for this child. What is the “very best”?

I’ll make a homework submission form on this site and program it to show your word count. You can use the one at utahvalleyreview.com until then, or just email it to me but please NOT as an attachment. Paste it into the text of your email.