Assignment Overview: Scholarship Essay
For the first formal assignment for ENG 102, you will write an essay for a scholarship application. It will need to be at least 500-700 words in length, and provide a focused, relevant, and compelling argument for the scholarship committee. You may select a scholarship opportunity on your own, or you can use the prompts from the MCCCD Foundations Scholarship Application. Specifically, the prompts are as follows:
- Please describe in 7-10 sentences your financial need for the upcoming academic year and your plans for covering costs as well as any circumstances affecting your need for financial assistance.
- Please describe in 7-10 sentences your academic goals and plans for achieving them. Include your prospective degree/certificate and timeline for completion. How will your educational goals, once attained, impact your life?
- Please describe in 7-10 sentences your employment or extra-curricular activities (clubs/organizations, athletic teams, etc.) or your volunteer community service experience.
You will want to build an essay with an introduction, conclusion, and paragraphs that address the prompts above. Be sure to carefully consider your rhetorical situation and the following guidelines as you develop this essay.
1. The introduction should grab the reader’s attention, effectively address the focus of your essay, and provide a clear thesis or purpose.
2. Your essay will need to address the scholarship prompts clearly and fully.
3. Your essay will need to include vivid, concrete details to help show rather than tell readers about your main point(s).
4. Your essay will need to be organized logically and clearly.
5. Your conclusion needs to wrap up the main point(s) effectively and be compelling.
6. You will need to carefully edit your essay to ensure that all your sentences are clear, concise, and correct (relatively free of grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors).
7. Your essay should be formatted according to MLA format style, or in the required format for the scholarship. You can use OWL Purdue (Links to an external site.) to help you with MLA formatting as needed.
TOTAL POSSIBLE POINTS = 200