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1st week mini-essay: description in MLA style This week's description mini-essay is low-stakes, brief, and invigorating

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1st week mini-essay: description in MLA style

This week's description mini-essay is low-stakes, brief, and invigorating.

Per the instructions on the previous page, prewrite (outline), write, and rewrite (proofread, revise) your description before posting it here for all to read. It should be exactly three paragraphs long, each paragraph being six to ten sentences, and figurative language and parts of the paragraphs should be labeled in brackets [ ].

Please post both your outline and your mini-essay below.  

Remember the one prohibition: choose a location more original than Disneyland or Disney World.

 

Learning Outcomes Choose and narrow a topic. Write an effective thesis statement with supporting topic sentences. Compose expository essays that have organization, order, unity, coherence, and support.

Descriptive essay rubric /2 paragraph-level organization, grammar /2 labels on parts of paragraph, figurative language, imagery /1 outline /5 TOTAL

 

Sample outline and description mini-essay

OUTLINE

I. Introductory paragraph

1. Opening about New Orleans

2. Background about my first visit

3. Thesis sentence stating purpose of mini-essay

II. First body paragraph about the French Quarter

1. Transition phrase and topic sentence stating main idea of paragraph

2. Supporting details

i. Sight

ii. Smell

iii. Taste

iv. Alliteration

3. Conclusion to paragraph

III. Second body paragraph about the cemeteries

1. Transition phrase and topic sentence stating main idea of paragraph

2. Supporting details

i. Metaphor

ii. Sound

iii. Personification

iv. Simile

3. Conclusion to paragraph and to mini-essay

MINI-ESSAY

J. H. English 100--Prof. Davis Descriptive Essay September 5, 2016

The Big Easy

My favorite place is New Orleans, Louisiana, specifically the French Quarter [OPENING]. On my first trip here, I was a very young adult traveling for the first time on a business trip. New Orleans enchanted me on that first visit; I couldn’t wait to return [BACKGROUND]. Please accompany me down memory lane to my favorite place. This essay conveys the magic, majesty, and tragedy of New Orleans using my personal experience and four rhetorical terms [THESIS SENTENCE].

Let’s visit the French Quarter first [TRANSITION PHRASE & TOPIC SENTENCE]. The intricate scroll-work of the wrought iron balconies and gates, the beautiful gardens and parks with elaborate statuary, and the grand St. Louis Cathedral are all picturesque [SIGHT]. The smells [SMELL] here can overwhelm the senses: seafood and heavy pepper in the jambalaya; damp, swampy odors from the waterfront; the aroma of thick cigarette smoke and booze from any bar in the Quarter at any given time. Comparable to the rich smells are the flavors [TASTE], for tantalizing treats tempt every tongue [ALLITERATION]. Thus, you have experienced the French Quarter as I have [CONCLUSION].

Next, let’s visit the many cemeteries [TRANSITION PHRASE & TOPIC SENTENCE], known as “Cities of the Dead,” for they are the New York skyline [METAPHOR] of cemeteries, each with massive mausoleums and headstones. Even in the cemeteries, a saxophone can often be heard [SOUND] wailing [PERSONIFICATION] into the wee hours of the night. The music drifting over the tombstones is like [SIMILE] the keening of a mother whose child has been sold; tragically, New Orleans was once the biggest slave market of the south. New Orleans is a haunting place, appealing to our emotions and senses in so many ways. It calls me now to visit again [CLOSING].