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The goal of our first essay assignment is a practical one

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The goal of our first essay assignment is a practical one. When you finish your time at Montgomery College and are making the decision to transfer to another academic institution, you will most likely be asked to compose a transfer application essay. Last year, The Common Application website posted the new essay prompts for the 2019-2020 application season. Select one of the prompts that speaks to you and compose a thesis driven essay, using description to enhance your paragraphs and to leave a dominant impression with your potential readers. 

 

Essay Prompts:  

 

1. What is it about your background, identity, interests, or talents (Choose one.) that you believe is particularly meaningful? Why is this an important part of who you are?

 

2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

 

3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome? 

 

4. 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 be taken to identify a solution.

 

5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

 

6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

 

What will I be looking for?

 

• A thoughtful and engaging response to the assignment prompt;
• Consistent awareness of purpose and audience;
• Your paper should be controlled by the blueprint thesis (or a thesis that presents your main idea and three subtopics that will appear in your body paragraphs);
• Each body section of the essay should be fully amplified, offering descriptive details, images, stories, and other relevant content;
• Varied sentence structure (This means you shouldn’t write the same type of sentence over and over again. I’m looking for variety and style.);
• Organization and flow. Your paper should logically flow from one sentence to another and from one paragraph to another without choppiness issues or awkward jumps in topic. Pay attention to transition statements (see Rules for Writers pgs. 51-54);
• Your paper should meet the parameters of the standard Description Essay (see the blue box on page 108 in The Brief Bedford Reader).
• Your paper should be proofread before it is turned in. There should be little to no distracting grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. I particularly want to see active attempts to avoid sentence fragments, run-ons, comma splices, and subject verb agreement errors.

 

Length: 3-4 full double-spaced pages (900-1,000 words) in proper MLA document format

Due Date for Draft: Wednesday, February 12^th, 2020

Due Date for Final Essay: Wednesday, February 19^th, 2020