Writing Assignment: Think about To Kill a Mockingbird—its plot, its characters, the themes, literary devices, figurative, language, etc. Do you think that the novel is socially significant, meaning that people who read it learn something about themselves or society as a whole? Why or why not? Using the Text Editor, write an essay that discusses the novel and its social relevance. Be sure to use specific examples from the text to support your opinions. Follow the steps of the Writing Process outlined for you below to help you organize and write your essay. Review the Writing Rubric that will be used to evaluate your work; be sure to review it before you begin writing so you know what will be expected for a superior essay. An assessment of Proficient or above is necessary to satisfy the requirements of this assignment.
STEP 1: Identify the purpose of your essay. What will you be explaining about the book?
STEP 2: Who is your audience? What information needs to be included? What does not?
STEP 3: Brainstorm some possible ideas for your essay. What can the novel teach people today? What are some of its messages? Are they relevant to the way in which society functions in modern society? How?
STEP 4: Write an outline of your essay. For example, the first paragraph will be your introduction. What information will appear in your second paragraph? In your third? And so on. This will help you organize your essay before you begin writing and keep you from discussing things that are not relevant to the main idea of your essay.
STEP 5: Write a draft of your essay. This is just your first draft so it does not need to be perfect; you will revise and edit it later.
STEP 6: Read over your draft and revise it; at this time you are just looking at the "big picture"; you are not correcting spelling, grammar, and mechanics errors. Ask yourself the following questions:
Does the essay flow smoothly? Is the main idea clear? Does anything need to be moved around to make more sense? Do any of the points need more evidence or support? Make any necessary changes.
STEP 7: Now go through your draft and make corrections in grammar, mechanics, and spelling. Be sure all of your sentences are complete, everything is spelled correctly, your punctuation is correct, etc. Make any necessary changes.
STEP 8: Now that you have revised and edited your first draft, you need to prepare a final, polished version of your essay to submit to your Contact Teacher. Be sure to include all of the changes you identified in the previous two steps.