Production Report 11a

How's the raw content?

In this blog post I'm going to show a rough cut of my Standard College Essay and compare it to the outline that I created last week.

From the Outline

Here's a section of the introduction part of the outline that I'll be showing an adaptation to:

"Here I plan on introducing the argument and the idea that school lunches are healthier than homemade lunches. To grab the reader's attention in the introduction I need to find a shocking statistic that catches the eye of the reader. Hopefully this will get the reader to keep reading. Another way to grab the reader's attention is to introduce a study from an easily recognizable institution or school (like Virginia Tech), to establish a bit of credibility in this essay."

Access to raw content

Here's the adapted part of my outline that is now my rough cut intro paragraph:

            The clock reads 11:30 a.m. and the stomachs of 32 elementary school children are rumbling. It’s lunch time. “Grab your lunches if you brought them from home!” the teacher reminds us as we eagerly push each other out of the way to be first in line. I was last in line, as I brought my lunch as per usual. After a short walk my classmates and I are in the lunchroom feasting on meals, school bought or home brought. I open my lunch box and see my favorite snacks: Cheetos, a turkey and cheese sandwich with mayo on both pieces of bread, chips ahoy cookies, and of course a juice box. Across from me were my friends consuming the school lunch, typically a burger or a hot dog accompanied with fruit and steamed vegetables. What I didn’t know at the time was that the lunch my loving mother had packed me was a ticking time bomb that slowly led to me becoming far too heavy for my own good. The lunches packed by parents often contain foods that contain little nutritional value for children, whereas school lunches are held to regulations set in place by the government. To promote a healthy and successful upbringing, parents should leave the lunches to the schools rather than themselves.

Audience Questions

1. I decided to use form in my updated version by starting off my essay with a hook that involves a personal anecdote. In order to catch the audience's attention, I decided it'd be best to try and use a unique story to pull the audience in instead of going with a fact, quote, or question at the beginning of my essay. I also included a thesis statement in my introduction as well. This will serve as to what the reader can expect the rest of my essay to contain, so that they know what they'll be learning about. I want my essay to be read and not glanced at and thrown in the trash, so I think these conventions will serve their purpose greatly.

2. The introduction is always the hardest part of the essay in my opinion. So just starting it to get the ball rolling was the toughest part of the project. I couldn't really figure out how I wanted to come at the readers and what I wanted the tone of my personal story to be. It was a lot of decision making that is definitely still subject to change. I'd say the successes are undetermined because I just finished it today and I need to take a break before I come back and look at my essay again.