Comp 100                                                                     Instructor: Kay Benjamin

1^st Draft due: Tuesday Feb. 08                                       Final Draft due: Tuesday Feb. 15

Narrative/Descriptive Essay

Your assignment is to write a narrative/descriptive essay about a time when you felt different from others, as Amy Tan did in “Fish Cheeks.”  Try to imitate the way Tan integrates the external events of the dinner with her own feelings about what is going on. Your story may be humorous or serious.

A good story incorporates

1. Details. It answers the questions who, what, where, when, why, how and so what.
2. Description. Describe people, things, rooms, places, moods, emotions. Pretend you’re filming this as move – what sounds, images, actions, expressions would show the story best?
3. Conflict. Is your story about conflict within yourself? Conflict with a social standard? Conflict with another person or people? Conflict with nature? Conflict with a situation? Be sure to pinpoint what the source of conflict is so that your story can revolve around this conflict.
4. Dialog. Rather than “tell” what was said, put it in the form of dialog. Show rather than tell.
5. Order.  Is your story going to be chronological? Spatial? Will you include flashbacks or flash forwards?
6. Thesis. What is the main point of your story? What did you learn? This will guide the way you write the story.
7. Pacing. Stick with the significant and relevant details, and give only sketchy or minimal information about people, setting, or circumstances that are not key to the story.

Your essay must

1. include a vivid description of at least one person
2. include at least two figures of speech (e.g. simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole)
3. show, not tell: paint a picture with action, dialog, suspense, and with hordes of unique, descriptive words

Additional essay requirements:

1. It should be at least 650 words long (approximately 2 typed, double-spaced pages with 1 inch margins all around, and 12 pt. Times New Roman font). Use this MS Word template.
2. It should follow the basic five-paragraph essay structure: an introduction, support and conclusion, but it may be longer than five paragraphs.
3. Some other elements you need to consider:

·        reveal a story worth telling with a beginning, middle and end

·        have a clearly established point of view

·        contain usage and mechanics that do not detract from essay 

·        have varied sentence structure 

·        use strong descriptive language: vivid adjectives and adverbs, active verbs,  concrete and specific nouns

·        use imagery appealing to senses other than sight: we have five senses, not one or two

·        convey a dominant impression (e.g. affection, repulsion, mystery, coziness, longing, etc.)

·        include setting and characterization

4. It should have a point. The reader should understand how this incident or event affected your life: How were you changed by this the event you’re describing? What new realizations did this person bring to you? Did you discover something about yourself?

Sample description of a person:

Josie's Triumph

Even though I am the older brother and she's the younger sister, Josie was always a head taller, and a good 40 pounds heavier than me when we were growing up. I hated that. I was the big brother. I was supposed to be dominant and protective. But while she was the biggest kid in school, I was nearly the smallest.

Josie's size and strength only made my lack of those two qualities more apparent. I was two years ahead of her in school, which meant that by the time she got to middle school I was already an 8^th grader. Kids in middle school are not kind or accepting, and over the years they had continually made fun of my puny size and lack of athletic ability. But the teasing reached a whole new level when Josie entered middle school. Now they had a new angle for tormenting me.

They would taunt, "Hey Shrimp! Your sister still beat you up?" Or, they would chant again and again on the bus, "Paul, Paul, he's so small, but his sister's ten feet tall!" I guess that rhyme was hurtful to both of us, but I only felt my own humiliation. It still baffles me that I took no notice of my sister's feelings. The times when the jokes centered around her, like when they called her "Josie the Giant," it was such a relief not to be their target that I did nothing to stop them. Nothing seemed to bother Josie anyway. I never heard her complain or so much as saw her wince. I just assumed that her interior was a steely as her exterior.

That was until the day she snapped.

There was a new girl, Ginny, in Josie's class who wore really thick glasses, and without them, was nearly blind. She, to my relief, had temporarily become the butt of jokes and pranks. The latest chant that the kids had come up with was, "Ginny, Ginny, short and fat, squinty-eyed and blind as a bat!" In all fairness, Ginny wasn't fat at all, but the kids chanted that because it rhymed with bat.

It started as a normal lunch break, with Josie and Ginny standing together in line. Suddenly, Tommy Pederson ran up behind Ginny and snatched her glasses off her face. Everyone began the chant as they carelessly tossed her glasses down the line. I watched Josie's face as it was happening. There seemed to be an anger beyond normal 6^th grade capacity brewing behind her eyes. Tommy Pederson had gotten the glasses back and was waving them around in the air. That's when it happened. With one hand Josie grabbed the glasses from him and with the other she punched him in the face. She hit him with such force that he fell over. Everyone froze in shock for a second until Tommy screamed "Get her!" There must have been 15 different students who rushed toward Josie. She held the glasses up as if to protect them and looked panicked until she made eye contact with me. "Josie! Here!" I screamed, gesturing that she throw me the glasses. She tossed the glasses to me, and miraculously, I caught them. She then faced the students who were rushing toward her. She skillfully defended herself by knocking them down one at a time as they approached her. She stopped fighting only when no one else dared move toward her.

I brought the glasses over and handed them to Tommy as he was picking himself up off the floor, humiliated. "Say you're sorry and give Ginny back her glasses," I told him. He said nothing. Josie slowly walked over and punched him in the stomach. He doubled over gasping for breath. "Say you're sorry and give her back her glasses," she repeated as she dragged him over to Ginny. "S-s-sorry," stammered Tommy as he handed her the glasses. Ginny took them, her eyes round with shock.

At that point, someone started clapping. It was quiet at first, then almost everyone joined in. Everyone except the kids that she had beat up. They sat in stunned silence, knowing that this day marked a change for us all.