Surprising Reversal
These are the instructions given by my teacher: So far you have written an essay that is theme-based: the open form narrative. For your next assignment, you will be writing a thesis-driven informative essay with a “Surprising Reversal.” You are going to write an essay where you will be seeking to surprise your audience with often overlooked and interesting information about a topic that interests you. You will accomplish this by showing how commonly held beliefs about this subject are incomplete, insufficient, or false. There are two options from which you may choose one: Choose something you know about but which you think other people have an incomplete or mistaken view of. The topic may be a hobby you have, your occupation, your country, etc. Topic selection is important for this assignment, so select a topic that you think may contain surprising and/or often overlooked aspects. Whatever you choose, however, must be something you are personally involved with, and this must be referred to in the essay. You cannot simply go on the Internet and ‘find something.’ Interview a family member or friend who has a job and find what is unusual or unexpected about this job. If the family member is a bank worker, for example, you will need to find a few things that we may not know about working in a bank.
This is a surprise-reversal informative essay, so you will need to find new information about whatever the job happens to be. Plan The essay will need to include the following sections: Introduction introduce the topic and interest the reader in it. The last sentence should be the Thesis Statement Your experience with the subject/topic – one paragraph. If you are writing about a hobby, for example, tell the reader a little about your history with this interest. If you are interviewing a friend/family member about their job, tell the reader a little about this person’s experience in the job. The Common View – tell the reader what you believe people typically believe about the topic, which may be false or true but incomplete. Your New Information – this will be the main part of the essay. This is where you tell your reader some things that they did not know about the topic. Conclusion – finish the essay and leave the reader with a parting thought.
Length You should write between 4-6 pages, double-spaced, for this assignment. Your audience: students and faculty with a mistaken or overly narrow view of something because they lack the information that you can provide. Your intentions: discuss commonly held misconceptions about a practice or place and then present your audience with new information that might surprise them. When evaluating the essay, I will consider the following: Does the essay hook and surprise the reader? Does the essay focus on expanding readers’ knowledge by emphasizing facts? Does it provide evidence of the common view effectively in your essay? As a writer, do you come across as fair and reasonable, with an appropriate tone? Does the essay conform to MLA standards? Is the essay well written, grammatically and structurally? Does it show evidence of an effective writing process?
