EXWR 100-01: Basic Writing
10 September 1996

Paper 3: A Significant Writing Experience/Previous Writing Instruction

For this paper you can choose one of the following 2 topics:

1. A Significant Writing Experience

For this topic focus on one experience--preferably either very good or very bad-- and describe in detail how writing did or did not work for you in it. Give details in this paper to help us as readers see and understand why the experience was so good or bad, in other words why it was significant.

--OR--

My Previous Writing Instruction

For this topic describe for us what you've been taught previously about writing. You might want to give us the whole chronology of how you learned to write, with just a bit of what you remember being taught to you at each stage, or you might want to focus on one particular stage in your instruction, for example that teacher in the third grade who asked you to write little stories for the class newspaper. In this paper you might also write about ways you learned writing outside of school, on you own working at a job or keeping a journal or working on your writing with a family member.

Either topic you choose should give you enough to write about for 2-4 pages, typed double spaced. The first draft of this paper is due on Thursday, September 12. In class on that day we'll be workshopping these drafts in small groups. After you've discussed your first draft with your classmates, you will revise the paper and the second draft will be due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, September 17.