Take-Home Diagnostic
To Be Completed at Home and handed in Friday, August 21st
**Read the following prompt and craft a response essay. This essay will not be graded and will be for evaluative purposes only. However, since this is a take-home assignment, please be sure to pay some attention to grammar, spelling, and technical errors. While my focus is on your ideas and the way you organize and present them, you do have plenty of time to give the essay a thorough proof-reading. Make sure your sentences are complete and that your ideas are connected and flow logically. Do not just ramble, as I will be looking for your ability to write as an analytical and argumentative writer. This essay should be between 2 and 3 pages in length, double-spaced (12 pt. Times New Roman font, 1” margins, no enlarged periods.)
Prompt: What About Your Childhood Reading?
In On Writing, Stephen King describes his first experiences of reading as well as of the movies and TV shows (also stories) that grabbed him as a child and captured his imagination. He started with comic books, then moved to war and animal adventure stories. Later, he explains, “Horror movies, science fiction movies, movies about teenage gangs on the prowl, movies about losers on motorcycles – this was the stuff that turned my dials up to ten.” What books turned up your dials when you were younger? Did you read them yourself, or were they read to you by someone, and if so, by whom? Do you have any strong associations with reading? Did you like it or dislike it? Now that you’re older, do you find yourself going back to any of those childhood favorites? If so, which ones? Have any of your favorite childhood books been adapted into TV shows and/or movies? If so, have you seen them? What did you think? These books can range from picture books to middle-grade chapter books to YA novels, Be as specific and detailed as possible with your examples in your essay.
Note: Please do not think that you have to answer all of these questions! The questions are designed to jumpstart your thinking process – to give you a starting point from which to work. In fact, it would be better if you chose two or three of these questions and answered them in detail, instead of trying to answer all of them.
Prompt: What About Your Childhood Reading?
In On Writing, Stephen King describes his first experiences of reading as well as of the movies and TV shows (also stories) that grabbed him as a child and captured his imagination. He started with comic books, then moved to war and animal adventure stories. Later, he explains, “Horror movies, science fiction movies, movies about teenage gangs on the prowl, movies about losers on motorcycles – this was the stuff that turned my dials up to ten.” What books turned up your dials when you were younger? Did you read them yourself, or were they read to you by someone, and if so, by whom? Do you have any strong associations with reading? Did you like it or dislike it? Now that you’re older, do you find yourself going back to any of those childhood favorites? If so, which ones? Have any of your favorite childhood books been adapted into TV shows and/or movies? If so, have you seen them? What did you think? These books can range from picture books to middle-grade chapter books to YA novels, Be as specific and detailed as possible with your examples in your essay.
Note: Please do not think that you have to answer all of these questions! The questions are designed to jumpstart your thinking process – to give you a starting point from which to work. In fact, it would be better if you chose two or three of these questions and answered them in detail, instead of trying to answer all of them.