Use 12Pt Times New Comm 1P96 Brock University Pro
During the term, you will write 5 personal narratives (non-fiction stories about your life). Please refer to the schedule at the end of the syllabus for due dates and the topics of the stories.
Each story earns 20 exercise points for submission on the assigned dates during the term; however, stories are not read and graded until the end of the term when you submit the final portfolio. Your draft stories should be revised every class during the term as you learn a new writing lesson. For example, if you learn about parallelism after you write Story #1, go back to Story #1 and edit it to add parallel structures. Make sure you’re reading the narratives in the textbook and the excerpts from Showing the Story by Life Rattle Press to know exactly what style I want in your stories. Since you have the whole term to edit and revise your 5 stories, the standard for the quality of the writing in the final portfolio is high.
Other Instructions:
1) Use 12pt Times New Roman font, with borders between .75 and 1-inch, and doublespace your work.
2) Include a title page with your name and student number.
3) Upload your Word file of stories to your personal Drop Box on Sakai by 11:00 a.m. on the due date. Late penalties apply.
Grade Breakdown The grade will be made up of these categories:
50% for writing style and grammar The writing displays economy, strong verbs, active voice, strong nouns, original language,
parallelism, and sentence variation and sound. The writing avoids wordiness, dead verbs, passive voice, weak nouns and unclear pronouns, cliches, faulty parallelism, and monotonous sentences.
40% for interesting, appropriate, detailed stories
(I) Engaging the Reader – The stories elicit an emotional response.
(II) Appropriate Topic – The stories reflect the prompts from the Exercise Schedule.
(III) Appropriate Form – The stories resemble the pure narrative form of the stories in
Showing the Story (simple, chronological storytelling).
(IV) Detail – Using tips from lectures and the textbooks, the stories contain enough
sensory detail and description for the reader to follow along and imagine being there.
(V) Plot – Something happens in the stories (action, conflict), and purposeful actions
connect appropriately to other actions.
(VI) Characterization – The stories bring people to life using techniques described in the
lectures and textbooks.
(These categories were listed in the Week 2 lecture)
10% for punctuation and formatting
The stories use punctuation correctly. See the punctuation rules in the online Udemy course
Perfect English Punctuation for Beginners, which was assigned as viewing for the punctuation
test. As well, format the stories according to the details listed above under Other Instructions