why you are in college and why college is valuable

• Be 3 FULL pages, double spaced
• Follow MLA formatting guidelines
• Practice PIE or TEA paragraph structure (see week 3 for information on this paragraph structure)
• Use at least three quotes from our readings.
• Include a naysayer in which you rebuttal

Tips for Success

• You can’t write about everything—you have to pick and choose, organize, focus and describe the most relevant events, goals, aspirations, feelings, etc that motivated you to come to college, and explain why they are significant.
• Remember, your reader wasn’t there at the events you’re describing. You have to describe these experiences using specific language, as if you’re writing to a stranger.
• Do NOT tell a “story,” a list of events in order. An essay is more than just a list of events told in order. Your essay should focus on “points/claims” backed up by “proof” that then “analyzes” your reasons for coming to college, despite the challenges or “pain.”
• You must use your experiences as well as the authors’ points to inform your points.
• You can use ‘I’ in this paper, but avoid addressing your reader directly (avoid ‘you’—it’s like pointing a finger at your reader).

Brainstorming Questions to Consider (Consider using these questions to generate ideas for your draft)

• Make a list of all the things that led you to come to college. What themes/patterns do you see? Does this theme appear in one of the essay’s we’ve read? How is your experience similar to that of the authors’? How so?
• If you had to pick the three or four events, times, places, conversations that influenced your decision to go to college, what would they be?
• How did each event lead you closer to your decision?
• Is there a specific person who influenced you to be here? What is your relationship to that person?
• Why are these events, or people significant?
• What did you decide to major in?
• How did people react to your decision?
• How do you feel about being a college student?
• Who has had the biggest impact on this decision?
• What are your future academic and life goals? Why did you pick these goals?
• What challenges have you already faced as a college student?
• What challenges do you expect to face?