Ahoy! Because I am old and I miss MySpace, we are going to do a MySpace survey style quiz/questionnaire. Why? First of all, it helps me to get to know you, but it also provides areas of expertise that you can write about for later writing assignments. 🙂

As I promised, anything that I ask you to do, I do myself. So here is MY list you can look it. Notice that I don’t always go into details on this. I’ve given intentionally vague answers in some areas – for a reason. You can do the same! I want to get to know you, but I don’t need to know ALL your dirty secrets. This way, you can still maintain some privacy while allowing me to (hopefully) make connections.

We will work on this all day today and will be due on Friday, 8/25 (revised due date: 9/6).

Today, we looked at successful Harvard application essays. Each table read one essay and as a group, discussed and identified the following:

1. A summary of the essay
2. A thematic statement of the essay
3. Accomplishments of the essay
4. Areas of the improvement for the essay
5. Ideas I could use/incorporate in my own writing

At the end of class, each table presented their findings to the class. A few people were surprised that these were successful Harvard essays – hopefully, that will ease the pressure on YOU a bit. A college application essay is designed to show your personality and your values – they look at your GPA, transcript, and test scores to determine your intelligence.