Writing a Persuasive Personal Essay

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ERIE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
TITLE III
English Composition Assignment
Interdisciplinary Course Materials
Culinary Arts
Course:
Topic:
Project title:
Project Description:
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Semester Created:
A.
English 021/ 023
Persuasive Writing
Writing a Persuasive Personal Essay
For this assignment, the student will be asked to read two selections
written by chefs about their work, and then explain in an essay of about
500 words why he or she would or would not be a good chef.
Phyllis MacCameron (North Campus English Department)
Paul Stenzel (North Campus Culinary Arts Department)
Fall 2007
Basic Directions
This assignment will ask you to read two selections and then to write an essay that will persuade
its reader that what you are saying is correct.
Print out the assignment and its related materials, which are in an accompanying file.
Your essay should be word-processed if at all possible. Whether it is printed or not, it should
conform to the basic requirements for college essays: it should be presented neatly in black ink,
with writing on one side of the paper only. If it is word-processed, it should be double-spaced.
Whether your paper is word-processed or not, you should use a heading that gives your name, the
course number, the number of the assignment, and the date. The essay should have a title.
B.
Things to Learn Before Starting the Project
This assignment directs you to write a college essay of about two pages. The essay is a personal
essay, based on your analysis of your own skills and personality. Since it is required to be a
persuasive essay—one that convinces your reader that what you are saying is correct—you will
need to be sure you know how to support a main idea with supporting details.
This means that you should understand the concepts of
 the thesis statement (a statement of the overall main idea of an essay or longer work),
 the topic sentence (a statement of the overall main idea of a paragraph), and
 the supporting detail.
Each paragraph in an essay of this kind is usually a presentation of a single supporting point, and
its topic sentence (the main idea of a paragraph) states that point. But that supporting point, being
the main idea of a paragraph, will have its own supporting material. It will be up to you to make
sure you develop your paragraphs adequately and build your essay in a sensible way.
Your textbook should be helpful in explaining these concepts.
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C.
The Project Assignment
First, read the accompanying materials, a short statement by Chef Geir Kilen and a longer essay
by Joseph George entitled “Becoming a Professional Chef.” These materials should provide you
with ideas for your essay.
In an essay of about 500 words, write to convince your reader either that you would be a very
good chef or that you would not do that job well.
If you refer in your composition to ideas or information from either article, refer to the author by
name. If you use the words of either writer, use the writer’s name AND use quotation marks.
Here are two examples of sentences that make adequate reference for this type of writing:
As Chef George points out, a chef needs to be able to tolerate heat.
Chef Geir Kilen tells us that for him “it is not ONLY about money.”
In later courses, you will be asked to use systems that are more complicated than this for
documenting references. The skills you are asked to practice here are the foundation of all those
skills. In composing sentences like the ones above, you will be preparing for later work.
A note about “I”:
In general, college writing does not feature the word “I” often at all. The exception is the
personal essay, which can hardly go forward without “I.” However, even in a composition that
depends upon the use of “I,” you should work to avoid overuse of that word. It may be possible
to rephrase some of your sentences so that they do not hit the reader in the face with “I” all the
time. For example, instead of “I hate heat and humidity,” you might say, “Heat and humidity are
extremely difficult for me to tolerate.” You’d have said almost the same thing, but without the
emphasis on “I.” An added bonus is that if you work towards burying “I” in other parts of the
sentence than at the beginning, your essay will have some variety in sentence structure. That is
desirable in any essay.
D.
Student Resources
As stated above, your course textbook is probably the first place to go for advice and help in
composing a persuasive essay. Since this is a substantial assignment, you might also want to ask
your teacher for help outside of class or visit the English Skills Center on your campus.
There are many online resources that may be helpful, such as the Online Writing Lab from
Purdue University (OWL), available at http://owl.English.purdue.edu.
E.
Faculty Resources
Instructors might want to provide additional reading for their students if time permits. There is a
great deal of autobiographical writing related to food preparation. As Joseph George points out,
television chefs are NOT very good resources, as the environment of the television chef is always
somewhat unrealistic.
If time permits, it might be possible to find a local restaurateur who would be willing to appear at
a class meeting. Such an event would elevate the writing of the essay to a more important status
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Title III Grant
than the average, and this emphasis on a single project might be good for the EN021 student in
the second half of a semester.
Resources on essay writing are, of course, ubiquitous for the English professor, but the numerous
textbooks intended for EN110 (the next course in the ECC sequence, a credit-bearing course)
might help the instructor to find ways to get students to reach upward.
F.
Grading Rubric
See next page.
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Descriptor
The paper is a multi-paragraph
unit with an identifiable
purpose for each paragraph.
The paper has an introduction,
a body, and a conclusion.
Body paragraphs clearly
support the thesis in identifiable
ways.
Body paragraphs have clear
topic sentences.
The essay has correct and
complete sentences.
4
Accomplished, exemplary
The paper has four or five
(or more) substantial
paragraphs, and each takes
on a distinct and clearly
signaled task related to the
thesis.
3
Competent, average
The paper has four or five (or
more) paragraphs, possibly of
varying substance, with fairly
clear distinctions between
paragraphs. There may be
few signals to guide the
reader.
The paper is set up so that
the reader is invited into the
ideas of the composition by
a lively introduction, presented with a clear main
idea, guided through clear
and relevant supporting
points, and led to a satisfying finish. The structure
of the paper is a source of
pleasure to the reader.
The flow of the paper is
such as to invite the reader
to share the writer’s
thought in a thoroughly
organized way, with each
body paragraph taking on a
new topic or a new slant on
the previous idea(s).
The paper is set up to have an
introduction, body, and
conclusion, and distinctions
between parts and ideas are
clear, but the guidance given
the reader is minimal, and/or
the construction seems
mechanical and obligatory
rather than arising out of the
writer’s current of thought.
The body paragraphs lead
off (or, perhaps, end up)
with clear and graceful
statements of the
paragraphs’ main ideas.
The paper is without or
nearly without errors.
The body paragraphs contain
clear statements of the
paragraphs’ main ideas, but
the effect may be repetitive or
mechanical, or overly simple.
The paper contains errors, but
they do not get in the way of
the reading of the essay.
Each paragraph takes on a
separate task, but the
machinery shows: the writer
appears to have placed more
emphasis on getting through
the essay than on leading the
reader.
2
Marginal, developing
The paper has several
paragraphs, but the writer has
not grouped ideas in such a
way as to begin a new task
with each paragraph. Ideas
may bleed over paragraph
borders, or the paragraphs
may be doing more than one
job.
The paper has an introduction, body, and conclusion,
but parts are minimal and
mechanical, with little
evidence of the writer’s
current of thought. The paper
does not seem to be oriented
toward the reader’s pleasure
and clarity.
1
Not yet competent
The writer does not observe
conventions about
paragraphing. The
composition is all one
paragraph, or randomly
divided without apparent
reasons for the divisions.
The paper reveals an
understanding of the concept
of supporting ideas, but the
ideas are not presented
clearly and/or are not
contained by the paragraphs
but bleed over into other
paragraphs and/or are lumped
together in one middle
paragraph.
The body paragraphs slide
into development (by
examples or other means)
without anchoring in topic
sentences.
The essay has numerous
errors that undermine the
essay’s credibility.
The paper shows little
achievement in making
distinctions between ideas. If
there is any segment of the
essay that can be identified as
the essay’s body, the ideas
are not clearly sorted out.
The essay may not even
distinguish between
introduction and body.
The essay shows no clarity in
identifying the point each
paragraph makes, or the essay
does not have body paragraphs.
The essay is full of errors.
The paper displays little sense
of the conventions of
providing the reader with an
opening, a development, and
a closing. The reader seems
not to be a priority to the
writer.
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