th
As a prerequisite for your 9 th
Grade English course you will be required to read Mark Twain’s
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer . A physical copy may be checked out from the library, but Tom
Sawyer is also available as a free ebook from Project Gutenberg (Gutenberg.org) or from
Amazon for the Kindle. The first unit of the 9 th grade class will be on The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer and the first assessment will be the assignment below.
Essay Prompt
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is full of heroic tales of childhood. Children are clever, brave, innocent, and adventurous. Adults are often slow, dull, or misled. While some might wish that this idyllic childhood would last forever, eventually humans will mature: as much as Tom
Sawyer is a novel about childhood, it is a novel about the process of growing up. Using examples from the book, write an essay about the ways that Mark Twain portrays childhood and the ways that Tom changes through the course of the book.
Essay Requirements:

600 words

Double Spaced
 Heading (including student’s name, teacher’s name, course name, and date)

Works cited in MLA formatting for outside research (none is expected or required)

Due: 8 August 2014
Rubric
Adherence to
Instruction: 2 4 6 8 10
Length: 1 2 3 4 5
Organization: 2 4 6 8 10

Your essay should have a discernible focus: a thesis statement is highly recommended.
Make sure your thoughts flow logically from paragraph to paragraph.
Grammar: 1 2 3 4 5
Content: 2 4 6 8 10

Do you make strong assertions? Rather than simply listing facts, do you make it clear why your arguments are important? Always think: significance!
Support: 2 4 6 8 10

Each assertion should be grounded in source material. Support any claims you make with quotes from the book. Any outside research you use must be cited correctly in MLA formatting though none is required or expected for this assignment.