ESSAY FOCUS In this essay, you will present ONE detailed and meaningful personal

ESSAY FOCUS
In this essay, you will present ONE detailed and meaningful personal experience that you had in nature. You need to show your readers the nature experience and make that experience come alive: show what the place was like, what happened there, and through the scenes of your experience, what made your nature experience meaningful or important.
TO CHOOSE AN EXPERIENCE: begin thinking about your childhood to get ideas; think about your earliest memories in nature as a child and do some brainstorm writing (listing, freewriting, or bubble clustering) to describe the most important experiences. Then, move through your life to the present and consider more recent nature experiences. List or write these down. For this essay, narrow your choices to the ones that you can remember the clearest with the most detail and the ones that are most important to you, have influenced you, or are attached to meaningful memories, etc. Then, select ONE personal nature experience to write about. In your essay, you will use the writing skills of description, narration, presenting scene (SHOWING), and analysis.
BASIC ESSAY FORMAT
Your essay will have an introduction that sets up the experience with a thesis statement that names the experience and states the meaning or importance of the experience, body paragraphs that SHOW the experience and the meaning though the details and scenes. The essay will present supporting quotes and analysis from our class reading that add depth to the experience you had, and a conclusion that summarizes the experience and reflects on the meaning of what you present. In the introduction, the first paragraph, you must have a lead in and a hook that gets the reader’s attention and a set up to the nature experience that you are going to present; the hook and lead in begin the essay, the introduction sets up the specific experience and context for the reader. At the end of the introduction paragraph, write a one-sentence thesis statement that names what the specific experience is and states the meaning or importance of the experience to you or what role the experience has played in your life. (See the narrative essay handouts and the five sample introductions and thesis statements.)
In the essay body paragraphs, SHOW these nature experience (presenting the story) using rich, specific details to make the experience come alive (SEE and FOLLOW the SHOWING part of the Writing Packet). You will use a careful balance of narration (presenting your experience through the movement of events) and description (using specific details that create visual scenes).  Be sure that you organize the scenes and details, so your readers do not become confused. VERY IMPORTANT: work to SHOW the experience and the most important scenes rather than just tell about what happened. Use specific and sensory details and description to make the experience come alive, recreate the action, mini scenes, and dialogue. (Besides the SHOWING part of the Writing Packet, SEE the essay samples.)
After you present your experience, also add, set up, analyze, and connect– THREE quotes from three different class readings. Use the readings from Packets C and D along with the first two readings. (FOLLOW the “Using Quotes” part of the Writing Packet and the essay samples for setting up, presenting, analyzing, and connecting the quotes.)
You will also add a visual image or a link in the essay to supplement your experience. USE a visual that SHOW or RELATES to your experience.
At the end of your essay, write a paragraph conclusion where you summarize and reflect on the meaning of your experience, choose meaningful final words that end your essay in a pleasing way. After the essay, create a MLA works cited list that gives your source material according to the Works Cited section in the Writing Packet. The correct source citation for each reading on D2L is at the end of the reading—USE that source citation for your Works Cited list.
IN THIS ESSAY, SHOW YOUR NATURE EXPERIENCE. WHAT IS SHOWING?
Showing means you let readers SEE and experience what you saw and felt, and you invite them along on your journey using concrete, specific, up-close, and action-oriented detail. You can see the difference in pictures. When people show, they use the specific names of things to create the visual images. Be specific; don’t say tree, say the acorn-laden oak. Don’t say fruit, say ripe, fuzzy peaches. Don’t say birds but say cackling crows. How specific is specific enough? Enough for your reader to see what you experienced and know exactly what you mean—but not so much that the reader gets lost in too many tiny details that aren’t pertinent. SEE the SHOWING section of the Writing Packet!
TWO SHOWING EXCERPTS
Here is an excerpt from one 1110 nature experience that shows rich, specific detail:
The backyard woods where I lived in northern Minnesota was our everyday play place and a world in itself. Unlike the smaller surrounding backyards, our five-acre lot was meadowland with a small creek zigzagging through the backyard. Our property backed up to heavily wooded state land. Here we created imaginary worlds while sitting under Juneberry bushes, found old birds’ nests and wasp hives and captured insects, baby turtles, and tree frogs, named landmarks in the woods, and left notes in the hole of the huge Burr Oak tree on our property. Collecting rocks, I decorated my mom’s garden with multiple stacks of extraordinary-shaped and unusually colored rocks. My siblings and I built and rebuilt forts, and each fort earned its own story and name such as the Beaver fort. When spring snow melt filled the low area at the woods’ edge, mallard ducks nested there and raised families. My younger brother and I watched the fluffy baby ducks scoot around the edges of the water, following behind their mothers. Enthralled, every spring we stood outside in the damp air for hours and conducted our own kind of duck and bird count.  
Here is another 1110 excerpt from a Minneapolis city experience:
The lot where my brother and I played with the neighbor kids was off of Franklin Ave in Minneapolis, sandwiched between a three-story “painted lady” Victorian house that our neighbors had been remodeling for the last ten years and a rented-out run-down duplex that had peeling siding in many places. There had been a house on the lot at one time, which had been burned in a fire many years before, and since then, the lot sat empty. Surrounding the lot on both sides was rusting iron fence. Towering above us near the alley were two huge silver maple trees, the Old Men, we called them because their huge limbs were all gnarled and knotty. Most of the grass on the lot had turned to knee-high weeds, except in the spots where we played ball. In the alley corner of the lot, there were lilac bushes growing out of control which made a miniature woods hidden from the neighbors, and in the lilacs we played fort. Anthony, Cherise, James, and I dragged pieces of cardboard boxes we lifted from the trash cans of neighborhood stores and metal left in the neighborhood alley for scrappers. With these resources, we created our own shanty town, hidden from our mothers’ calls and the older kids, who were always looking for trouble.
This essay does not have to be about a childhood nature experience or about an experience here in the US. The essay can be about any one experience you had in nature. Choose an experience that your remember clearly. The essay can be about an experience in your own yard or neighborhood. DO NOT TELL the story of a long trip or an extended time period. Focus on ONE specific event, happening, or experience.
You do not need to show all the moments in your experience, but set up, focus on, and develop the important ones. Show readers the place or setting through details that were particularly significant to you, so we can see why the place was significant. Ask yourselves this question: What was it about that place and the natural surroundings that made the experience so important or exciting?
WRITING PLAN
To begin, think about important nature experiences as either a child or as an adult. Where did you live or travel, what was the natural environment like, and what did you and your family or friends do in that natural environment? Make a list or brainstorm several, then narrow the list down to the most important. Remember that the experience needs to be detailed and specific and about your experience in nature.
As you write and shape your experience, keep in mind that your essay story needs to have a point about what happened—something learned, something gained, or something lost, something changed–a central idea that you are trying to show, the meaning you assign to the experience.
Remember, you choose what to include:  you probably have many experiences to choose from, so you do not have to write about a part of your life experience that might be painful or too emotionally charged.  Also remember, Essay One is a public essay: your classmates and I will read your work, so do not write about anything that you do not want to be revealed to others.
1. First, write the beginning draft–approximately FOUR pages of just the nature experience (the essay body). IF your experience ends up being nine or ten pages, you will need to cut back and focus the experience more specifically. The Final Essay One with all the parts should be only about six to seven pages. If your essay ends up being over seven pages, you are writing too much and you will need to compress the writing.
2. After or as you write the experience, you will write an introduction paragraph that sets up and forecasts the story of your experience in nature and hints at the meaning of what you are going discuss through the thesis statement, which is the last full sentence in the introduction (See the Writing Packet).  
3. Through SHOWING the action of the nature scenes and their importance, reflect on the meaning of the experience. Also at the end of the essay and as you lead into the conclusion, reflect on what the experience meant. The reflection/analysis will be an important part of the essay. REMEMBER that the INTRODUCTION and THESIS sets up and names your experience and states the meaning, the BODY SHOWS the experience, and the CONCLUSION reflects on the meaning of what the introduction names and the body shows. All these must all be in sync and work together.
4. After you write the FOUR pages of your nature experience and have read the class readings for this unit, add three quotations for depth–three quotations from three different class readings. USE FULL SENTENCE QUOTES. As you are doing the weekly reading, make note of any quotes that seem important or resonate with your life and experience that you might use. You can use the class readings to shed light on your experiences or ideas, to highlight similarities or feelings about experience, or to reveal differences between the text and your experiences. All three of the quotes need to have a connection to your experience but they do not have to be the same as your experience. Be sure to FOLLOW the “Using Quotes” handout in the Writing Packet with introducing, presenting, analyzing, and connecting the quotations you use to your experience. DO NOT add all the quotes at the end of the story. They need to be integrated within the story.
TO RECAP ABOVE:
• Three full-sentence quotes, each one from a different one of the posted class readings.
• All the quotes you use need to be complete statements/sentences and not just a word or two.
• All quotes need to be presented, analyzed, and connected as per the “Using Quotes” in the Writing Packet.
When using the quotes, carefully avoid plagiarizing by introducing the author and title of the essay, story, or poem and by putting the exact words the author uses into quotation marks. Use parentheses ( )  around paragraph or page numbers on D2L to show where you located the quote or information. See the “Using Quotes” part of the Writing Packet.
Analyze the quotes you use in your essay (analyze the words in the quote first before you go to a general meaning) and connect them to the meaning of your experience. DO NOT make the mistake in your analysis of analyzing the meaning of the whole writing the quote is in. (SEE “USING QUOTES” in the Writing Packet where you will see how this is done and also check the sample essays.)
NOTE: With all the class readings, I put the correct MLA citation at the bottom of each reading. See the citation handout in the Writing Packet or go to the library’s website for reference on what information is needed to cite your sources.
5. Add a visual or a link to a video that can shed meaning on your experience.  This could be a picture you have taken or one from the web or social media that relates to your essay subject.
6. Create a conclusion that briefly summarizes your experience in nature, that points to and reflects on the greater meaning of the experience, and that ends the essay in a pleasing way.
READ THE ENTIRE WRITING PACKET, THE HANDOUTS IN THE ASSIGNMENT PACKET, AND ALSO THE SAMPLE ESSAYS, ALL OF WHICH WILL GIVE YOU A COMPLETE CONTEXT OF THE ASSIGNMENT AND WHAT IS EXPECTED.
ESSAY REQUIREMENTS
• Final Essay One should be only about six to seven pages long on the assignment, including the visual or the works cited list. If your essay ends up being nine to ten pages, you will have to focus and compress the story.
• Essays must be double-spaced and written in 11 or 12-point font size with standard margins.
• Your name, class, the assignment name, and date info will be in a left side heading that is done with the No Space line under the Styles button on Word.
• You need a creative title—NOT general like “My Nature Experience.” Center the title.
• Your essay 1. needs a thesis statement at the end of the first paragraph, 2. needs to SHOW the experience, 3. needs the three quotes set up, analyzed, and connected, 4. needs a visual/media added, and 5. needs a conclusion, and 6. needs a Works Cited list.
• The Works Cited list at the end of the essay cites your three quote sources in MLA format AND also cites name and the source of the visual/media. (SEE the Writing Packet for the works cited format.)
GRADING REQUIREMENTS
I will grade Essay One based on the following criteria:
• correct format that follows the essay requirements.
• an introduction that sets up the experience.
• a detailed thesis that names the specific experience and states the meaning or importance,
• a unified focus between the main idea of your essay and nature experience as stated in your thesis, the SHOWING of the experience, the reflection of what the experience means, and the conclusion.
• coherent organization—the ideas and experiences are presented clearly in an understandable and focused way,
• logical flow and connection of your ideas that makes sense,
• lively rich details and scene that SHOW your nature experience,
• correct introduction, set up, and use of reading quotations as per the assignment packet,
• analysis of the quotations’ words and meaning and connection of the quotations to your experience as per the assignment packet,
• clear connections made between your experiences, your viewpoint about them, and the viewpoints from the reading quotes,
• meaningful insights that show critical thinking,
• an added visual or media link,
• a creative title that relates to the experience,
• textual clarity—correct use of the quote sources, understandable sentence wording, clear transitions between parts of the experience, ideas, topics, and paragraphs, clean grammar, and punctuation.  In other words, few mechanical errors, and
• a correct MLA works cited list.
GUIDING QUESTIONS FOR WRITING ESSAY ONE TO GIVE YOU IDEAS OF WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT
These questions are a way to generate ideas for your nature experiences. They are questions to get you thinking about your nature experience and to help you with remembering a few specific experiences that were meaningful for you.  Then you can narrow down to one important experience to write about.
What were your general experiences with the environment growing up? Where did you live? Who was in your family? What city did you live in, what kind of neighborhood, etc.? Did you live in the city, the suburbs or out in the country?  Did you move a lot? What was the environment of your yard and neighborhood like?
Were there trees, gardens, or parks in your neighborhood? What did you do in these environments? Think of some specific experiences.  What kind of plant and wildlife did you have in your yard, neighborhood, or city?  
Have you had any interactions with birds or animals? What about with trees or water? Did you climb trees or swim? Did you have any nature collections? Did you spend a lot of time playing outside growing up?  Did you play sports outside? Where and with whom?  What did you play?  
Did your family go on vacations or trips? Where did you go? How often? How did you travel? What did you see when you traveled and when you arrived? How was the environment where you traveled different from home? How were the people in that environment different? What were specific memorable experiences with any of these that were meaningful? What did you learn?
Close your eyes and remember the experiences: sights, smells, and feelings of being in a specific nature place, and then write up notes that explain the experience.
Also, consider how your relationship with the earth has been affected by your family history, by the experience of your parents, grandparents, and forebears or by how they came to own and to use their property?  Did your family farm or work the land with gardens?  Raise animals? Did your family go on fishing and camping trips? Or did your family hunt? Did your family teach or show you how to care for the Earth and its creatures? Was your family vegetarian and, if so, why?
Has an environmental crisis (flood, heat, or storm) ever affected you or your family? Has there been a book, movie, song, or class you have taken that has affected deeply how you think about the earth and your natural environment? Has religion played a role – positive or negative – in how you experience your relationship with the earth?
Then, after thinking about these questions, list ideas, use the bubble cluster in the Writing Packet, write notes about your nature experiences, or free write whatever comes to mind about your experience in nature. Be sure to give specific examples, scenes, or anecdotes of what you remember and describe the moments in detail, showing through scenes, and focus the experiences on what you gained or learned them