HMHV 201
Greg Martin
Fall 2011

Essay Draft #2: Due 11/17

LENGTH: No less than twelve pages (double spaced, 12 point font), and no more than 20 pages. Use the published readings as models for structure, characterization, scene and summary, and other craft features. 

Expectations and Grading Criteria for Essay Draft #2 (This is a drafting checklist for you and your peers who will read this draft and help you in advance of turning it in.) Essays will also be graded according to how much your essay has evolved and developed since the first draft, and how well you incorporated the feedback from your workshop leader and workshop peers.

  1. Essay drafts must be complete. Endings are difficult, but they are absolutely necessary. Find a way to finish your piece before you turn it in. 
  2. Essay drafts should be proofread carefully. Basic proofreading mistakes jolt the reader out of the dream you are creating.
  3. The essayist attempts to turn themselves into a character.
  4. The essay gives the reader all the basic orienting facts they need.
  5. Plot, tension and conflict are developed. The essay has a protagonist (the narrator or someone the narrator is telling a story about) who wants something, and there are obstacles to what they want, and those obstacles are formidable.
  6. The essay has several well-developed scenes.
  7. Details are specific and concrete. 
  8. The writer uses imagery and figurative language (simile, metaphor) to appeal to the senses
  9. The writer pays attention to language: to diction, to sentence variety and economy, and to ACTIVE VERBS.
  10. The essay employs the retrospective point of view. Include in your story the act of remembering. What do you remember? What don't you remember? What do you wish you remembered?
  11. The writer pays attention to organization--to paragraph organization and to chronology.
  12. The essay has a Turning Point which is emblematic of the change that has occurred in the narrator's life.
  13. All principal people in the essay are well-characterized (physical description/speech/action).
  14. The essay employs reflection and speculation which allow the reader insight into how the author has changed. This reflection does not just come in one paragraph at the end, but in many places, throughout the essay.

Good luck!