In the article “Wackiest New Year’s Eve Ball Drops,” we saw
the writers examine the practice of dropping various items to celebrate the new
year. Note that the article begins
with a specific example (dropping an olive in Bartlesville, OK) that
illustrates the general trend (that cities and towns across the country have
unusual New Year's traditions).
For Thursday’s class, please write one paragraph that
follows this pattern. Begin by
identifying a general trend—some custom, tradition, or behavior that is
fairly widespread. This could be
almost anything: 1980’s hair coming back into fashion, people becoming
vegetarian, raising chickens in urban backyards.
Once you’ve got a suitable topic (we’ll discuss these in
class), write one well-developed paragraph that functions as a single example
of your chosen trend. For example,
if you were writing about the chicken trend, your paragraph might begin
something like this:
Every day, Elmer Smith joins tens of thousands of other commuters in riding the subway home. He travels from his 40th story office on Wall Street to a modest duplex in Hoboken, New Jersey. With his business suit and New York Times, he looks like any other commuter—except that when Elmer arrives home, he leaves his briefcase in the hallway and scoops chicken feed from a 40-pound sack on his back porch. As Elmer sprinkles feed from an empty Maxwell House coffee can, his six chickens burst eagerly from their plywood coop and begin pecking the ground around his feet.
This assignment will lead to your first essay, so be sure to pick a trend that you find interesting. Let me know if you have any questions.
No comments:
Post a Comment