Self-Assessment: Assignment One (Student's
Version)
Stage One:
1. What is the moment about which you are writing? Make sure
that you are not writing about more than one moment or about an
event which is too broadly focused.
Is the moment clear in your essay? If so, where? Bracket the
part of your essay which focuses on the moment of insight. If
not, where could you incorporate this information. Note it here.
2. Why is the moment autobiographically significant?
Will your readers understand the significance of your moment?
If not, what could you do to make the moment more significant
to your readers? For example, some writers will explicitly or
implicitly show how the moment was important in helping them
make a difficult life-changing decision or how it was important
in helping them overcome an obstacle.
3. What truth was learned because of this moment?
Is this clear in the essay? If so, where? Bracket the part of
the essay that explicitly or implicitly shows what truth was
learned.
4. What is the thesis of this essay? Where is it stated? Note
it here.
As you examine your thesis, be aware that a thesis for
personal experience writing may have too subtle of a focus to be
distilled in a single sentence. In fact, if you try to force the
thesis into a single sentence, it might ruin the story. Perhaps,
you may have several sentences in your essay which may directly
or indirectly state the overriding purpose of your essay. If so,
where are those sentences. Note it here.
Stage Two:
1. Read through your essay draft and number each paragraph in
the left-hand margin (1, 2, 3, etc.)
2. Read through your essay again and, as you do, make notes
on it just as you would make notes on your readings:
A. In the right-hand margin, in one sentence summarize
each paragraph. If you can not do this, it is possible that
the paragraph is not focused enough.
B. Underline the sentence containing the main point of each
paragraph. Most paragraphs are organized around a main point and
as in the case of personal experience writing, the paragraphs
can be organized using chronological topic markers.
C. In the left-hand margin, rather than write what you
are saying in each paragraph, write what the paragraph is
doing. For example, is the paragraph helping to establish
the importance of a person or is the paragraph being used to
recreate an important scene pivotal to your epiphany? Maybe one
of your paragraphs is being used to provide some background
information so that readers will understand the significance of
the moment to be discussed.
Stage Three:
Now that you have re-seen your essay, you are almost ready to
revise it. First, make some notes right on this page.
1. Review the notes in your right-hand margin. Does each
summary match your topic sentences in each paragraph? Does each
paragraph have a topic sentence or an implied one?
If not, what paragraphs do you need to change and how will
you change them- perhaps by adding a topic sentence, changing
the one you have, combining two or more paragraphs?
Mark your paragraphs in some way to remind yourself if you
need to make some changes.
2. Review your right-hand margin notes. Is each topic
sentence developed and supported by the paragraph’s details
and examples? If not, where should you add supporting
explanations? Where should you delete any unrelated details?
3. Go through and highlight all of the direct quotes that you
use in your paper and make sure of the following:
A. Does the quote intensify the climax of your story? Direct
quotes, when used throughout a personal experience essay, have a
tendency of emphasizing both trivial and important parts of the
story, thereby lessening a dominant impression you may wish to
create in the readers’ minds.
B. Have you introduced these quotes with a signal phrase?
4. Now examine how you have sequenced the narrative action of
your story and make sure of the following:
You can speed up (by including long sentences) or slow down
(by including short sentences) the pace of your story since
readers move their eyes faster or slower depending on the
sentence length. Do your sentence styles before and during the
epiphany part of the essay slow readers down making them pay
more attention to that part of the essay?
Also helping readers to focus more on one part of your story,
have you used telling detail before and during the epiphany part
of the essay? If so, underline where the detail is used. If you
have not used enough detail, what type of detail can you include
to create a more dominant impression? And where should you use
it?
Stage IV:
Go back and revise your essay with all of the answers to
these questions in mind so that in your next revision you can
answer "yes!" to all of these questions.
After you have self-assessed your own writing and have assessed other students' drafts
and they have assessed yours, you probably will make more changes. Does your essay meet the following guidelines?
Grading Form for Assignment One (Instructor's Version)
1. Including telling detail and without sprawling out over too much
time and space, the writer clearly frames the moment. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20
2. The writer, implicitly or explicitly, indicates clear
autobiographical significance and indicates what truths are learned. 0 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
3. Using a compelling narrative literary writing style, the writer
has coherently and logically organized his/her ideas supported
by apt reasons and well-chosen examples, 0 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
4. The writer explores the epiphany thoughtfully and in depth. 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
5. Essay meets the 3-4 page length requirement, follows MLA documentation and format (Hacker
371-377), and smoothly integrates quotes, summaries, and
paraphrases into the essay (Hacker
334-340). 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
6. In-class self-assessment workshop is thoughtfully completed.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
7. Essay is critically read by at least two readers during the
in-class middle draft peer workshop. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
8. Essay is generally free from errors in mechanics,
usage, and sentence structure. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
______ points out of 180 points = ______
In most cases, productive invention and
smooth drafting rarely result in the essay a writer has
imagined. Experienced writers are not surprised or disappointed
when this happens, however. They expect to revise a draft and
revising will help move them closer to the essay they really
want to write.
