Assignment, Descriptive Essay, Due-Date TBA

M. Hall

English 1301, 1302, 2320
Angelina College

Descriptive Essay

With reference to the excerpt from Orwell’s “Confessions of a Book Reviewer” (which we will discuss in class), the grading matrix, and the MLA essay format handout, write an essay of 3 – 5 pages describing (1) your best friend’s room, (2) your best friend’s car, or (3) a classroom.

Avoid first-person and second-person.  The essay is about the room and, thus, your friend, not about your feelings, the cacophonous me, me, me, I, I, I, my, my, my of the MyFaceSpaceBook subculture.  You are the metaphorical filter for observation, so first-person allusions are redundant and annoying.  Write “The milieu of Paul’s room reflected his enthusiasm for art, baseball, and the poetry of Rod McKuen, and his less defensible fondness for the bass horn,” not “To me, the milieu of Paul’s room…”  You needn’t tell the reader that Paul is a great friend and an interesting fellow; let the reader infer that from your description.

Catalogues of adjectives do not constitute description.  Note that Mr. Orwell says only of the table that it is rickety, not that it is “old, wooden, green, stained, 16.5 inches by 54 inches,” and on and on and on.  “Piles of dusty papers” tell us all we need to know about one element of clutter; Mr. Orwell K.I.S.S. (keeps it short and simple).

Avoid hyperbole (nothing in Paul’s room is stunning, shocking, amazing, awesome, or time-bending).  Dial it down. 

Avoid cliches’ (such as “Dial it down”; that was a regrettable lapse). If you waste space and time with garage-sale similes such as “Paul’s room looked like a hurricane hit it” your paper will look like a big zero hit it.

Attempts at humor seldom work; if you insist on giving them a go, keep your tries subtle, free of clichés, and, best of all, rare.

Your essay will be more than simply a catalogue of adjectives prefacing nouns; you will also incorporate a very few elements of narrative and perhaps even persuasion. After all, why should anyone care about why Elizabeth dearly loves her 1956 Plymouth? 

A due-date will be announced later; we haven’t made the first class yet.  However, you, as the good student I never was, will want to begin early.  We will have a rough-draft session probably next week.  You will bring to class at roll call (“Uh…don’t count me absent; I’m in the library printing it out…” is a zero) a typed, solidly-constructed, and complete rough draft for a grade.  The “rough” bit is that it will surely feature corrections and notations you have made by hand.

Don’t wait.  Passivity is a curse.  You will never in life enjoy the right time and the right place and uninterrupted hours for any sort of work.   You simply have to get on with it.