Assignment sheet, ENGL 309 Project 4

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Project 4:
Imitative Essay (150 points)
The invention of the essay as a literary form is commonly attributed to Michel de Montaigne, a
sixteenth century French writer who published his famous Essays in 1580. The etymology of
the term “essay” comes from the French essai, which means “trial” or “attempt.”
So far nobody has come up with a satisfactory definition of the essay, but there do seemto be
some traits upon which most people agree:
1. An essay is often written from a personal point of view (though many exceptions can be
found: there are plenty of essays by people, especially scientists or specialists writing for
a general audience, that are written from a fairly impersonal point of view).
2. Essays tend to be conversational, with a rather loose structure—however, this is not to
say that they’re sloppy. Rather, just like most things that look effortless, it takes a lot of
hard work to polish an essay up to this degree of apparent looseness.
3. Essays begin with a question in the writer’s mind—i.e., from curiosity. Even if the essay
seems to digress occasionally from this question (digression being a native part of the
essay form itself), the question is always there, lurking in the background.
4. Related to #3, an essay always has a point. It may not make an explicit argument;
however, all essays are aware that they have readers, and attempt to persuade or
convince readers of something, even if that point remains implicit. An essay should
never be simply informational (like the infamous “research paper”).

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Learning Objectives
By the time you complete Project 4, you should be able to…
 Analyze a piece of writing to identify all aspects of rhetorical style at work there:
purpose or “story”; motives of language, subject, writer, and reader; physical and social
footing; deviation from convention; tropes, schemes, and images.
 Make decisions about which of these aspects of rhetorical style best characterize a piece
of writing.
 Replicate those aspects of rhetorical style using a different topic.
Project Deliverables
1. Imitative Essay. Using the knowledge of style and genre that you’ve gained through deep
stylistic analysis, write an essay in the style of one of four model essays (these will be posted on
BbLearn). Your imitative essay will be centered on the question or problem outlined in your
semester topic proposal. After thoroughly analyzing the essay, you will write about the topic in
the style of the . The goal of this essay is to move your readers to think in new ways about your
question or problem, while deepening your awareness of style by attempting to inhabit that of
another writer.
2. Memo (one single-spaced page). Your memo should be the first page of your essay and
should include the following:
a. The essay you chose to imitate, and why you chose that one as a stylistic model.
b. Explain in detail what you found to be the most significant stylistic features of the essay
you imitated.
c. Explain what stylistic features you chose to imitate, and why.
d. Explain your biggest challenges and the most significant thing you learned from
imitating someone else’s style.
Like all memos, yours should directly announce its purpose in the introduction. (e.g. "This
memo includes a stylistic analysis of the model for my imitative essay and an explanation of my
own stylistic choices based on the model. It also documents my process of revision for the
imitative essay." Longer memos like this one should be broken into sections with headings: e.g.
Stylistic Analysis of Didion's "Goodbye to All That," "Revision Process."
Grading Criteria, Imitative Essay (Final)
Strength of stylistic analysis. The memo clearly articulates how the model
essay reveals the stylistic features and concepts discussed in Performing
Prose and in class.
50 points
Clarity of purpose and depth. It’s obvious after reading the essay why it was
written; the question or problem is clear and compelling, and the author’s
personal investment is obvious. Personal experience and reflection,
primary, and secondary are used, depending on the stylistic model the
essay is imitating. Includes background and history where needed.
40 points

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Successful imitation of a model essay. The essay demonstrates attention to
the stylistic characteristics of a given model, including structure and
sentence-level aspects.
40 points
Quality of execution. It has a clearly defined structure, and the final
product is well polished, stylistically sound, confident, and error-free.
20 points
TOTAL 150 points