Tutorama: Week Two: Understanding Your Assignment/First Draft

Introduction
You've read the essay(s), you've explored the material in class discussion, and now you're ready to write your first draft. Before you sit down at your computer to write, however, you need to spend some time looking closely at your writing assignment. If you make sure you understand the issues at stake in your assignment before you begin writing, you will save yourself a lot of time and energy as you write your first draft.

Understanding your assignment:

Let's look at a typical English 100 assignment for Paper #1:

In his anecdotal essay, “An Animal’s Place,” Michael Pollan discusses multiple perspectives as he thinks through his own position on animal rights.

For your first essay, I want you to join the debate. You’ll do this by summarizing several of the perspectives, or positions, presented in Pollan’s essay and analyzing his responses to them: explaining whether or not he is persuaded by their arguments, and, in each case, why or why not. As you work through your drafts for this paper, I want you to consider your own response to Pollan’s internal debate about eating meat. What conclusion does he come to regarding “an animal’s place”? Is it a reasonable conclusion? Is it yours?

The assignment is presented in two parts: an introduction that contextualizes the question and the assignment question itself.

Strategy #1: Read the entire assignment
Often instructors will put the key parts of the assignment in bold or italics. This indicates that these are the questions you should most directly address in your paper. But be sure to read all of the assignment. The parts that are not in bold can often provide important clues for how to approach the questions. In the assignment above, for example, the instructor points out that Pollan discusses different perspectives, or positions, in his essay. This indicates that you will need to differentiate between Pollan’s position and those he references in his essay. You’ll also need to differentiate between your position and those you reference in your paper.

Strategy #2: Break down the assignment word by word
Every word in an assignment can give you a clue for how to approach your essay. For example, look at the first question in bold: “What conclusion does [Pollan] come to regarding ‘an animal’s place’?” Part of this paper involves defining Pollan’s position on animal rights vs. animal welfare. This will require a certain amount of summary on your part. But notice that the assignment doesn’t end there. Look at the next two questions. These will move your paper into analysis, and help you to form a project of your own: “Is it a reasonable conclusion? Is it yours?” These questions require you to offer an answer of your own to the questions, dilemmas and positions raised in Pollan’s essay. You’ll need to filter the perspectives he offers, and finally offer one of your own that engages with those in his essay.

Strategy #3: Rewrite the question in your own terms
Check your understanding of the assignment by writing a version of it in your own words. Show what you've written to your instructor during class or office hours to make sure that you're on the right track.

Strategy #4: Don't just answer the questions; create a project
One mistake that many students make is to answer the questions one after the other, focusing on just one question at a time. This often creates a disjointed paper that may answer the individual questions, but does not become a coherent and independent project. Use the assignment questions as a guide, then focus your energy on creating a project that connects all of these pieces together.

Writing Your First Draft

Even though the first draft is considered a "rough" draft, don't wait until the last minute and dash something off in a couple of hours. Doing this almost guarantees that your “final” draft will read like a rough draft, and your grade will reflect the roughness of your work.

You can build upon the strategies you used to read the assignment in order to start writing your first draft. Here are some suggestions:

Prewriting:
Don't just sit down with a blank screen on your computer and expect to start typing away. Take some time before you begin writing to review your free-writing from class, your notes on the assignment, and any class notes you took during discussion. You should never have to start a rough draft from a blank computer screen.

• Re-read the essay with the assignment question in mind. Underline or highlight passages that address the concepts discussed in the assignment.

• Make a list of the key concepts in the assignment and define them using quotes from the essay. Make notes about how the concepts are related to each other.

• Divide a blank sheet of paper into two columns. On one side list the individual questions from the assignment. Then make notes on how you would answer each question. Refer to passages from the text that influence your answer – either because you agree with the passage in the text, or because you don’t agree with it. In your notes, be specific about either position.

• Try to construct a clear statement of your project. Your statement of project would be 2-3 sentences that explain the subject or main issue of your paper, and your position on that subject.

Writing:

• Keep referring back to your assignment as you write. Are you answering the questions or addressing the important issues in each of your paragraphs? If not, you may be losing focus.

• Make sure that you stay close to the text, either by discussing an idea from one of the authors in each paragraph, or by quoting from one or two of the texts in each paragraph.

• Take frequent breaks; focus on writing one coherent paragraph at a time rather than the whole paper all at once.

Revising:

• Reread your essay. Have you addressed the main assignment question?

• Do you provide definitions of important terms from the essays?

• Do you engage with the texts honestly? Or are you taking an author’s position out of context in order to assert your own?

• Do you have a clear project in which you assert your own position?

Conclusion
Understanding your assignment and writing your first draft provide you with a solid foundation for your final draft. Although your final draft may look very different from this first draft, the drafting process is essential because it allows you to begin thinking through your ideas in a more complex way.

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