You have decided to pursue a college degree because you want to change your life in some aspect. In an informative essay, explain why a college degree will change your life.

Precollege English
Final Essay Assignment

This assessment is worth 40% of your grade. The Final Essay submission is worth 10%
and the Micro-assignments are worth 30%.

Completing this Assessment will help you to meet the following:

Course Outcomes

⦁ Apply the writing process to create well-organized, multi-paragraph written documents with topic sentences and relevant supporting details.

Context

To understand the benefits of composing essays using the writing process and applying the skills we are learning, we will compose a final essay using each stage of the writing process.

For each step of the process, you will complete a micro assignment and submit the work for feedback from your instructor. It is your responsibility to use the feedback your instructor gives you on each micro assignment in your final draft. On your final draft, you will be graded on the rubric given at the end of this assignment.

Important note:

Every micro assignment and the final essay should be submitted as Microsoft Word documents. Your instructor cannot provide line by line feedback on submissions you type into Blackboard.

Since it is very important that you receive detailed feedback from your instructor and apply it to your final draft, you must submit each piece as a separate Word document.

Directions

Craft a five-paragraph essay that answers and addresses the following prompt:

You have decided to pursue a college degree because you want to change your life in some aspect. In an informative essay, explain why a college degree will change your life.

The essay will follow this format:

⦁ The introduction will provide information about the degree you are pursuing and will contain a thesis statement that summarizes the main reasons why a college degree will change your life. This paragraph must have at least three (3) sentences.

⦁ The three body paragraphs will cover three reasons why a college degree will change your life. Each body paragraph will include both major and minor details that support each reason. Each of these paragraphs must have at least five (5) sentences.

⦁ The conclusion will review the reasons you have presented, and explain why you are motivated by these reasons to complete your degree. This paragraph must have at least three (3) sentences.
You will complete the following micro assignments in order to craft this final essay:

Prewriting

After reviewing our lesson on prewriting and ideation strategies, select one of these strategies to prewrite for your final essay. Refer to the Essay Assignment Directions for the essay topic (in our Blackboard course, click on Course Assessments). The goal of the prewriting exercise is to generate supporting ideas for your essay. You can use whichever prewriting strategy you would like to try. Some of the prewriting strategies we discussed are as follows:

⦁ Brainstorming
⦁ Mapping/Clustering
⦁ Freewriting
⦁ Listing
⦁ Doodling/Drawing

You do not need to submit the pre-writing itself. Below is what will be submitted:

⦁ Discuss the pre-writing strategy you used and explain how it helped you generate ideas. Would you use the same strategy again?

⦁ Submit at least three main ideas that could be in your final essay on how college will change your life. Please review the rubric in the Prewriting assignment in Week 2.

⦁ Submit as a Word document in the Week 2 folder.

Outline

For this micro assignment, you will complete a five-point outline of your essay. Your outline does not need to be in complete sentences, but it should include entries for all five paragraphs.

Follow these steps:

⦁ Refer to the rubric in the assignment directions (Week 3) for how your assignment will be graded.

⦁ Fill out the Final Essay Outline Template using Microsoft Word and upload it to Blackboard. Do not create your own document.

⦁ Complete each line in the template, including a draft of your argument.

Introduction Paragraph Draft

This week, you will submit a draft of your introduction paragraph for instructor feedback. Your introductory paragraph should include a minimum of three sentences. The sentences included should do the following things:

⦁ Hook the readers’ attention and get them interested in reading your essay.
⦁ Give some broad details and introduce the general topic.
⦁ Give your topic statement.

Important:

⦁ Submit your introduction as a Word document.

⦁ Refer to the Essay Assignment Directions for the essay topic (in our Blackboard course, click on Course Assessments).

⦁ Refer to our Week 3 lecture for more information on introductions.

⦁ Refer to the rubric attached to the assignment directions in Week 4 for how your assignment will be graded.
Based on instructor feedback, you will revise this paragraph for inclusion in your final draft.

Body Paragraph Drafts

This week, you will draft your body paragraphs. The body paragraphs draft should accomplish the following:

⦁ There will be three body paragraphs. The topic of each paragraph will be one reason why a college degree will change your life.
⦁ For each body paragraph topic, you will provide at least three major details that explain, describe, or inform about this reason.
⦁ For the draft, you should try to write all 15 minimum sentences for the body paragraphs. You should have five sentences in each of the three paragraphs.
⦁ Each body paragraph should have a sentence/sentences that do the following:
⦁ Introduce the topic of the paragraph in a topic sentence
⦁ Give major and minor details about the topic that inform, explain, or describe the topic
⦁ Conclude the paragraph and help transition to the next paragraph

You may include a new version of your introduction paragraph in your body paragraph draft if you want your instructor to review it, but this is not required. Please review the rubric that is attached to the assignment directions in Week 5.

Conclusion Paragraph Draft

This week, you will draft your conclusion paragraph and submit it for instructor feedback. The conclusion paragraph must meet the following criteria:

⦁ It must be at least three sentences long.

⦁ The sentences in the body paragraphs must do the following:
⦁ The first sentence of the paragraph should restate the argument, using different words.
⦁ Summarize the 3 main points (3 reasons) in 1-2 sentences.
⦁ The last sentence(s) of the conclusion should be an overall concluding statement: explain why you are motivated to complete your degree and what you will do next in your journey.

Important:

⦁ Submit as a Word document.
⦁ Refer to our Week 5 lecture for more information on conclusions.
⦁ Refer to the rubric in the assignment directions (Week 6) for how your assignment will be graded.

You may submit your revised introduction paragraph and/or body paragraphs for instructor feedback when you submit your conclusion, but this is not required

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