IWBAT:
- College essay stuff.
HW:
- Find a passage that shows Holden acting childish and one that shows him acting like an adult. How does this show TENSION within the character?
- Find a passage that shows how Holden’s change in environment affects his consciousness. What is the change?
- Find a passage about the ducks. Why do they keep coming up?
Bildungsroman → means formation novel, coming of age narrative.
The Catcher in the Rye is a story about growing up -- a MODERN view of an entire literary form!
Modern → Gray area (continuum) constantly changing by nonlinear (more complex).
How do you make your college essay successful?
Student Ideas:
- Express your personality through your writing. Show that you are beyond just a number.
- Hook the reader into your essay --> make them WANT to know more.
- Using the experience/moment to show personality and who you are.
- Elaborate/sophisticated word choice to convey whatever you're trying to get the reader to understand or see in you.
- Be a good storyteller! These are narratives, not a persuasive essay. Sure, you want your essay to push the reader into wanting to accept you into college, take an interest in you, but you're telling a story about you. This is where you break that mold.
River's Ideas:
- Successful - what is the PURPOSE? use the language of your prompt to determine what you must show: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
- Use concrete realities to show abstract qualities (METAPHOR, PERSONIFICATION, SYMBOLS). Example: Abstract Characteristic: Determined Rambunctious Curious Concrete Reality: Legs fluttering to get to her location Threw a churro Philosophical Questions
- Zoom in on the EXACT MOMENT! Example: Soccer Freshman year of soccer, Not making the team, Having to tell my dad when he got home from work, Working hard to get on the team.
- Use ACTIVE verbs and SENSORY details. What do you smell? Taste? See? Hear? Feel? Be specific, complex vocabulary, will hook the reader.
Next, we took a look at a "not so hot" college essay in contrast to the Costco college essay so we can see how truly effective these tips are.
One thing that the person in the second essay didn't do well that I think really did cripple their whole essay was the fact that they were talking about being a thespian and how much they liked acting but they whenever they spoke about acting they mainly complained about everything they had to do as an actor in theater. They especially highlighted some childish behavior and didn't say that they learned how to be a more cooperative actor, team player, or anything like that. Instead they talked about how they learned their passion for entertaining. They then closed out their essay talking about acting again! It didn't make sense to me and they never took their writing to the next level.
You can apply what we did in class today to our college essays or even your entire college career (that is if you choose to go to college). Even if you choose to take a different path in life, you can apply this to how you choose to express yourself and use this knowledge to your advantage when applying to jobs in the near future.
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