Essays and Assignments

Here are ten tips for composing an effective essay under pressure for the SAT or ACT. But be warned: we've saved the most important piece of advice for the very end.

This comic essay has some serious advice to offer about how to compose a passing essay for a standardized test.

Here's a project that will introduce you to brainstorming and give you practice in group writing. You will join with three or four other writers to compose a letter of complaint.

In this descriptive essay, student Mary White imaginatively recreates her childhood home in the country.

This assignment will give you practice in composing a narrative essay based on personal experience.

After you have completed one or more drafts of your narrative essay, use the following checklist as a revision and editing guide to prepare the final version of your composition.

This assignment will give you practice in composing an informative essay based on interviews with your subject.

This composition combines a narrative frame with a detailed comparison and contrast that relies on two different methods of organization: the block method (subject by subject) and the point-by-point scheme.

Before writing a set of instructions or a process-analysis essay, you may find it helpful to draft a simple instructional outline. Here we'll look at the basic parts of an instructional outline and then examine a sample, "Breaking in a New Baseball Glove."

The following short essay is based on the sample outline that appears in the article "How to Write an Instructional Outline." How successful do you think the writer has been in converting a set of instructions into a process analysis essay?

In this short essay, a student explains the process of crabbing--that is, the steps involved in catching river crabs. Read (and enjoy) this student composition, and then respond to the discussion questions at the end.

Here is a draft of a short process-analysis essay, "How to Make a Sand Castle." In terms of content, organization, and cohesion, the draft has both strengths and weaknesses. Read (and enjoy) this student composition, and then respond to the evaluation questions at the end.

Compare this student's draft of a cause & effect essay, "Why I Hate Mathematics," to her revised version, "Learning to Hate Mathematics."

In the following composition, a student explores her thesis by tracing a clear pattern of cause and effect.

Once you have settled on a topic for a classification essay and explored it through various prewriting strategies, you should be ready to attempt a first draft. This article will show you how to develop and organize a five-paragraph classification essay.

A student composed the following draft in response to this assignment: "Choose a topic that interests you, and develop an essay through strategies of classification or division." After reading the draft, respond to the discussion questions at the end. Then compare "Shoppers" to the student's revised version of the essay, "Shopping at the Pig."

The following classification essay, "Shopping at the Pig," is a revised version of the draft "Shoppers." See if you can identify the numerous changes that have been in this revision, and consider the extent to which the essay has been improved as a result.

After you have completed one or more drafts of your classification essay, use the following checklist as a revision and editing guide to prepare the final version of your composition.

The best way to get ready to explain and defend a position on some issue is to explore a topic thoughtfully, considering both sides of the issue before preparing an essay plan.

This draft was composed according to the guidelines in "Preparing an Argument." After reading the draft carefully, respond to the discussion questions at the end. Then compare "Time for a New National Anthem" with the revised version of the essay, "Time for an Anthem the Country Can Sing."

This argumentative essay is a revised version of the draft titled "Time for a New National Anthem."

In "Miss Brill," first published in 1920, Katherine Mansfield recounts the observations of an aging English teacher on a Sunday afternoon in a French vacation town. After reading Mansfield's short story, compare your response to it with the analyses offered in two sample critical essays.

After you have finished reading "Miss Brill," by Katherine Mansfield, compare your response to the short story with the analysis offered in this sample critical essay.

In the essay "Miss Brill's Fragile Fantasy," we saw how one writer developed a thoughtful critical analysis of the title character in Katherine Mansfield's short story "Miss Brill." The following essay, "Poor, Pitiful Miss Brill," offers a somewhat different perspective on the same character.

In this short critical essay about Ernest Hemingway's novel "The Sun Also Rises," the author demonstrates how minor characters shed light on some of the conflicts experienced by the protagonist, Jake Barnes. The essay is based on a close reading of the novel and does not rely on secondary sources.

One way to develop our own essay-writing skills is to carefully examine how professional writers achieve a range of different effects in their work. Such a study is called a rhetorical analysis. Here you will find a sample rhetorical analysis of E. B. White's essay "The Ring of Time."

In this critical essay, student Mike Rios offers a rhetorical analysis of the song "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by the Irish rock band U2.

When it comes time to revise and edit the next-to-final draft of a critical essay, this checklist should serve as a helpful guide.

Email is one of the most common forms of written communication in the business world--and the most commonly abused. Follow these ten tips to keep your messages clear, concise, professional, and polite.

Notice how music journalist Erin O'Keefe has based this review of "Klima" on an interview with the artist as well as on her own thoughtful response to the music.

A family newsletter doesn't have to be silly or boring. One that's fairly brief, thoughtfully composed, and marked by a sense of humor can be a charming way of staying in touch with distant friends.