Audience: General
Purpose: Effectively use words to describe a picture
Form: Your choice
Length: 1000 words (four pages)

Choose a picture, any picture, from a magazine, a book, a poster, a postcard, a movie, that appeals to you. Now, using only 1000 words, thoroughly and effectively describe this picture so that someone who has never seen it will be able to picture it in their mind's eye when they read your written description. Please attach your picture to your written description when submitting this assignment.

Provided by:
Dr. John F. Barber

Audience: General
Purpose: Effectively use words to describe a movie
Form: Your choice
Length: 8 words

Pick a favorite movie. Using no more than eight words, write a review of that movie that encapsulates the movie's central theme, plot, story line. A reader should be able to decide whether or not to see this movie based on your review.

Hint: Use descriptive words that provide information about the "who," "what ," "where ", "when," "why," and "how " of the movie.

Provided by:
Dr. John F. Barber

Audience: General
Purpose: To develop your observational skills, and have a little fun
Form: Essay
Length: Three pages minimum

• Observe bizarre or unusual combinations of things people buy at a store (for example: toilet paper, kiwi fruit, and a package of manila envelopes).
• Write a dialogue between the person buying these things and the cashier.
• In this dialogue, have the person buying the items justify or explain the reason for their purchase.

Provided by:
Dr. John F. Barber

1. Draw a picture (a map) of your bedroom as it was sometime during the first ten years of your life. Put in as much detail as you can remember: furniture, windows, doors, closets, objects, colors. If you can't remember exactly what your bedroom looked like, improvise, draw how it might have been.


2. Now, number a spot on your map for each of the following:
   • A place where you liked to sit
   • A natural object
   • A hiding place or a friendly retreat
   • A place where you looked out on the world
   • A scary place


3. Describe each of these places. Write about each place you have numbered on your map, remembering as much detail as you can about each one. Try to capture all the memories. Write so your reader can see a movie of what you are describing.


4. Finally, weave responses to these prompts into your writing:
   • Someone is calling you from outside the room you have drawn in your map. What is this person saying? What do you say in response? Write six exchanges of dialogue between yourself and this person.
   • Someone is with you in the room you have mapped. Who is this person? Tell about this person? What are the two of you doing in your room? Tell this person a secret about yourself.
   • At your present age, if you could bring back one thing from your childhood bedroom that you have mapped, what would it be? Why is this one object so important to you? What memories are associated with it? How has this object made you the person you are today?
   • Finish this sentence: "If I knew then that I'd really care about _____ ."

Provided by:
Dr. John F. Barber

Audience: General readers
Purpose: Produce a narrative interesting to general readers, as well as familiarize yourself with using the library
Form: Narrative essay
Length: Five pages minimum

Using five library reference sources, one of which must be computer-based or online, write a lively, interesting, and informative narrative (account) that tells of local, state, national, and international events that happened on the day you were born. You may use information from the actual year you were born, or any year since then, but your research must focus on your birthday. This assignment cannot be a list. You must develop each of the events you incorporate into your narrative. All sources must be properly documented using either MLA style.

Sample

Provided by:
Dr. John F. Barber

• Write an essay arguing that there is a difference between Friday and Saturday nights
• Use specific examples and supporting details in your argument
• Do not depend on your readers to reach your conclusion, you must take them there and make them see the logic of your argument.

Provided by:
Dr. John F. Barber

• Your writing background (What writing courses you have taken, when you completed these courses, and what the emphasis of these courses was)
• What good and bad experiences you have had with writing
• Your writing ability (What kind of writer do you think you are: good, mediocre, or bad? Be honest.)
• What you have been told and/or taught constitutes good writing
• What you *really* think makes writing good
• Your reason for taking this course (A requirement for your major, or personal and/or professional interest?)
• Your personal goal in this course (Just want to pass and forget about writing? Or, want to learn something about writing? Be honest. There is no penalty.)
• Your ideas for how this course can be most effective for you (What should we do here? How should we do it?)

• Be as honest as you wish. There is no one right answer for this assignment. I really want to know what experiences and expectations you are bringing to this class.
• Demonstrate what you understand of good writing techniques in this letter, specifically the use of topic sentences and supporting details.
• Please show me your best writing.
• Address all the issues noted above in your letter.

Provided by:
Dr. John F. Barber

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my P.C.
It plainly makes four my revue
Mistakes I cannot sea.

I've run this poem threw it,
I'm sure your please too no,
Its letter perfect inn it's weigh;
My checker tolled me sew.