Topic: Write a five-paragraph essay/letter to convince Bobinot to stay and reconcile with his wife or leave her.
Background
The Situation: Chopin’s “The Storm” is actually an entry in Calixta’s diary and your friend Bobinot had the misfortune of reading it. After reading about what happened between Alcee and Calixta, Bobinot came to you. You listened to Bobinot and read the detailed story in Calixta’s diary. Needless to say, Bobinot is depressed and absolutely doesn’t know what he should do next. Your five-paragraph essay/letter will hopefully sell Bobinot on THREE reasons he should follow your advice about what he should do concerning his marriage/family.
Author (who you get to be this time): For this assignment you are Bobinot’s close friend. You are concerned about Bobinot’s well-being and recognize he urgently needs your guidance and support. You negotiated meaning with the diary entry multiple times to try and better understand the situation from all sides. You see the value and necessity of using his wife’s words in your plea with Bobinot. So you will SHOW and break down relevant passages from Calixta’s diary in your body paragraph to sell the reasons Bobinot should follow your advice
Audience: From the story you can gain a sense of who Bobinot is and how he may feel about his marriage, his wife, and his family life. Think about what you know about Bobinot as you try to write something that would give him THREE good reasons to try and salvage his marriage or leave. You need to keep your awareness of the situation and your friend in mind to ensure he actually reads your letter and considers your advice.
Purpose: Your purpose is to persuade your friend. You are trying to help him. Give your very confused and depressed friend advice on what he should do next concerning his relationship with Calixta and provide/sell THREE very good reasons why he should follow that advice. You need to not just give your friend advice—you need to convince him to actually follow it. Your good friend’s well-being IS your business.
Document Genre
You will use a thesis-driven, five-paragraph essay as the form for a longer letter you will write to Bobinot to deliver and sell your advice. Since you are communicating directly to Bobinot, you can use the second person to refer directly to Bobinot with words like “you” or “your” and refer to yourself in the first person with words like “I” or “me”.
- A thesis-driven essay uses
- a shorter introductory paragraph that ends with a thesis statement that names the advice the you are selling;
- THREE focused and very well-developed body paragraphs that use an evidence-driven showing, telling, and closing to sell three compelling reasons he should follow that advice;
- and a shorter concluding paragraph that take one last stab at selling Bobinot on your advice and reasoning as you help him make sense of what is most important.
Our FIVE-PARAGRAPH ESSAY/LETTER will have a short introductory paragraph, THREE body paragraphs to sell Bobinot three reasons to take your advice, and a concluding paragraph. To effectively use the show and tell strategy, please make sure each body paragraph introduces, shares, and discusses TWO passages from Calixta’s diary to sell your reasons for Bobinot to follow your advice. For this essay I am mostly concerned with how well you sell in your body paragraphs. To review how to craft effective topic sentences (reasons), consult the introduction to our Body Paragraph Workshop discussion board. For more information on how to plan and draft body paragraphs using our show and tell technique consult the Body Paragraph Advice page.
In each paragraph i want TWO quotes on each body paragraph so coming out to six quotes in total and also cite the auther and paragraph number after each quotes
Grading Criteria
To evaluate your essay, I am certainly going to make sure it includes all the essay parts and types of writing we have discussed. But as I state in the previous section, my larger concern is how effectively your essay sells your advice to Bobinot. Here is how I will calculate your grade. To look at how well your essay potentially sells, I ask myself the following question. How likely is it that Bobinot seriously considers your advice here? My five possible answers to that question and five corresponding grades are listed below:
|
Likelihood Bobinot Considers Your Advice |
My Reaction to Your Argument | Grade |
| Absolutely | Wow | A |
| Very Likely | Cool | B |
| Maybe | Eh | C |
| Doubtful | Meh | D |
| Not Happening | Nah | F |
I will apply the above grading system to each of the following four parts of your grade to calculate your essay grade.