Project Paper

Pick a Disney movie or something family-friendly and write it as if you were doing this essay. Below is the
assignment information, please read through it carefully. Have a great week.
Step 1: Educate Yourself About the Topic
Start by reading Louise Erdrich’s “z: The Movie that Changed My Life.” (See Getting Started Learning
Module for the text). Then choose a movie (or other art forms) that you have had a similarly strong reaction
to. After choosing a topic, then get to know it. For this essay your topic must be one experience with some
sort of text. . You will educate yourself about this topic by re-watching, reading, or listening to the piece you
are writing about and paying close attention to what happens, and also remembering your original
experience with this piece and how it affected you. Here are some starting points for finding a good topic:
Immediately after you re-watch your movie, take notes about it. It will be hard (or rude) to take notes duringthe movie, but you should write about your experience immediately afterwards. Do not trust your memory
too much. You will hang onto some general impressions, of course, but to really get to know your topic, you
need to capture as many details as possible. Do that on paper.
Step 2: Identify and Improve Your Main Idea
After you’ve experienced your movie and have thought about it, you must then figure out your opinion about
that topic. Again, it’s not enough to kind of have a general sort of wishy-washy impression or opinion. You
need to know exactly what you think, and that means you need to write it down.
The first half of your opinion should look like this:
This movie/book/song was life changing
Then you write the word “because”:
This concert/reading/play was ____________ because
Then you finish the sentence by explaining why you think that this concert/reading/play really was so
______________. This will give you a thesis statement that capture the main idea of your future essay. The
more clearly you know what point your essay needs to make, the easier it will be for you to stick to that one
main point and have a more effective essay.
What Not to Write
You might be tempted to write sentences like these as your main idea:
I loved this play because it was so interesting.
I hated this concert because the band sucked.
The problem with this kind of thesis statement is that it focuses on you and your reaction rather than the
topic. You may have a strong reaction to the topic, and that’s good, but for to write a useful thesis
statement, you need to figure out why you react so and use that to create an opinion that focuses on the
topic. So ask yourself what made the play so interesting. What made the band suck? Once you figure that
those details, you can use them to explain an opinion about that topic and not a statement of your reaction:
The movie crash changed my view of racism forever because for the first time I saw that no one really fits
any stereotypes.
The book The Hunger Games changed my view of the world by exposing how power hungry governments
really are.
DO NOT simply summarize the movie. No more than 30% of the essay may be spent on summary of the
movie.
Step 3: Carefully Present Your Idea
A. Plan the Essay
Before you actually draft your essay, you should outline the ideas and evidence you will be using in the
body and use this outline to make sure you stick to your main idea. Your essay must be organized like this:The first paragraph introduces the topic (the movie you watched) and your main idea (your one main
opinion about it).
The body of the essay must explain why your opinion makes sense. That means providing your readers
with evidence from the performance to show that your opinion is based on reality. If you say, for example,
that the play was great because it was so violent, you should give examples of violence in the body and
explain why that violence is so interesting. Here are a couple of other suggestions to help make the body
more effective:
Use paragraphs to show your readers how the evidence divides into sub-groups. You might use one
paragraph to give one example of what you’re talking about. You might divide the performance into
separate sections and write one paragraph about each section.
For every paragraph you plan to write, write a topic sentence that states the main purpose of that
paragraph.
Three is not a magic number when it comes to body paragraphs. Use as many as you need.
The essay should close with one final paragraph that reminds your readers about your opinion and why
your opinion make sense.
B. Draft the Essay
Now that you know your main idea and how you will organize your explanation and defense of that idea,
the only thing left is to write the essay.
In this draft, you will follow the outline you just wrote. For each paragraph of the body, start with the topic
sentence and then illustrate that idea with detailed evidence — actual facts from the performance you
attended.
Your finished essay must be at least 700 words long.
The essay must also use MLA formatting. More about that below.
This draft will be brought to class (4 copies!) for peer response
C. Revise Your Essay
After your paper has been drafted, set the essay aside, let it cool off, and then come back to it and read it
carefully to make sure it presents your evidence and explains your thinking as clearly as possible. You will
also have feedback from your peer response group to consider at this point. You might also ask a friend to
read the paper to you or go over your work with a writing consultant and/or other writing students.
Before you submit the essay, make sure it follows MLA guidelines for formatting a manuscript. MLA
formatting determines the margin size of your essay, how page numbering works, what the first page looks
like (especially the information at the top of the first page), the font, the spacing, paragraph indentations —
stuff like that. Note: You won’t need to use a Works Cited page because all the evidence in this essay will
be first-hand evidence from your own experience. Be sure to look at the section of the handbook on MLA
format and the sample essay there to see how your essay should look.The Final Product
When finished, your essay must focus on just one idea about a live performance and defend that idea with
detailed evidence (as seen in Chapter 6 of The Humble Essay).
Your main idea must be your own opinion about that performance.
The essay must follow the organization guidelines in Step 3.
It must be follow MLA formatting guidelines.
It must be at least 700 words long.
It must have no more than four ungrammatical sentences and no more than 12 spelling, word choice, or
punctuation errors.
It does not need to include a Works Cited page. That comes later.