WRTG
101S Writing Assignment 1: Autobiographical Essay
WRTG 101S Writing Assignment 1:
Autobiographical Essay
Writing Assignment #1:
Autobiographical Essay
Writing assignment #1 will be an
essay in which you describe an event or person you have encountered in your
past work experiences or experiences in your community. This essay is
informed in part by an article from Mark Gellis, “Autobiographical Writing in
the Technical Writing Class.” That article is in the ereserves section of
this class.
A Brief Introduction to the
Strategies for this Essay:
In his essay, “Autobiographical
Writing in the Technical Writing Class,” Gillis writes that “An
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essay…is written not only to
explain, but often to record and reveal the author’s personal interaction
with the subject” (p. 326). You will accomplish these steps in your essay.
You will record and reveal your interaction with the topic about which you
are writing.
Gellis notes on page 327 that
writing a story or narrative of one’s past can help one’s professional
growth. A goal of this essay is to help you understand your goals in pursuing
the degree you are pursuing at UMUC by describing and analyzing a work or
community experience you have had in the past. Examples of previous students
who have written this type of analysis are given below.
Overall, if you read the following
article by Gellis in our ereserves section of the class, you will have a good
understanding of how to approach this assignment. The article is
“Autobiographical Writing in the Technical Writing Course.”
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Organization:
In this essay, you will have the following:
- · an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement
- · body paragraphs that support the thesis statement
- · a concluding paragraph
In addition, the paper should be
formatted according to APA style (e.g., you should include a running head with
page numbers, have appropriate margins, etc.) in accordance with the video
tutorial you observed in class, How to format your paper according to APA
style.
Note that Gellis cautions on pages
329-330 that students have the tendency to “go broad but not deep” in this type
of essay. With this caution in mind, please analyze your topic with a sense of
depth, not covering too many years or too many incidents. Covering too many
years or incidents can result in a fairly shallow or broad coverage of your
topic.
Some possible topics on the essay
include the following:
- · A situation you encountered at work or in your community that involved a failure
- · A situation you encountered at work or in your community that involved an important
victory
- · A person (a supervisor or co-worker) who has contributed to your growth as a
professional
- · A person or event that represented a negative example of professionalism
- · Your first day or week on a particular job and what you learned from that first day or
week
- · A situation in which you had to make an ethical choice at work or in your community
Please observe the following
examples from Gellis’s article:
- · Ellen (328-329) described the work environment at her first job, and she expounds on what she learned from having been exposed to this work environment.
- · Steve (page 329) elaborated on how his co-op job changed his views of professionalism.
- · Dave (page 330) wrote about how his mentor influenced him during his work experience.
- · Mike (page 330) wrote about the complexities concerning union employees and
management during a company strike
and what he learned from the experience.
- · Frank (page 331) wrote about a nonwork experience in Haiti, incorporating dialogue into
his description
- · Richard (page 331) noted his experience in diagnosing a problem related to radiator cores
at his job. The methods he went
through in testing the testing process are quite humorous.
Also note Gellis’s observation on
page 332:
While the average 18-year-old has
had a wealth of experiences, and has the intelligence to explore and comment on
those experiences, juniors and seniors have usually had an additional 2 or 3
years to mature, and are usually capable of more sophisticated judgments.
The student body at UMUC is
typically represents the older student that Gellis describes
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here. For this reason, it is hoped
that the essay provides you, as a UMUC student, the opportunity to make sophisticated
judgments and thorough analyses of a previous work or community experience.
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Point of View:
For writing assignment #1, you will
write in first-person point of view for much of your analysis. In other words,
you will feel free to use “I” and “we” in describing your work experience.
While you may have been discouraged from using first-person point of view in
previous classes, please note that this essay is one that lends itself to
first-person point of view.
However, you should not write in
second-person point of view. In other words, you will not write “to the reader”
by using the pronoun “you” in referring to the reader.
Length and Due Date
Length: 800-1200 words.
Due Date: to be determined by the instructor
Due Date: to be determined by the instructor