Sample Essay 2
Paper 3: Expository Essay
Rough Draft and Revised Draft

[The following scenario is from a course taught by Peggy O'Neill at the Georgia Southern University. It appears in my recent book, The Practice of Response (Hampton Press 2000), as one of six case studies of the ways contemporary compositionists respond to student writing. It presents a background statement on the course, the writing assignment, information about the student, the student writer's memos that accompanied the papers, a draft of the paper, and a revision. You may respond to the draft or to the revision.]

This writing was produced as part of a Composition I course at Georgia1. Fall 1998. Although Pertrina was starting her second year of college, she was taking first-year composition for the first time. She explained that she didn't want to take it as a first-year student. She attended class regularly, was always prepared, and actively participated in class. The course was set up as a workshop that required students to submit writing for review weekly, write responses to published essays weekly, and participate in response workshops, discussions, and other in-class writing activities. Students wrote on topics of their choice, with the aid of regular invention exercises. The first six draft workshops were devoted to responding to rough drafts of 1-3 typed pages. The next six workshops were focused on responding to revised drafts. At the end of the semester students were to produce a 10-15 page portfolio of polished writing (culled from their drafts) and a formal, introductory letter to the portfolio reader. The portfolio's purpose was to demonstrate that students had achieved the course goals, which included the understanding of composing processes as well as a sense of their own composing process, an understanding of rhetorical concepts such as purpose and audience, and an ability to adapt their writing for a variety of rhetorical situations. Students received written feedback from me on their weekly drafts and reading responses. One midterm conference was required, but there were opportunities in the two-hour computer workshops for informal conferencing.

        The first of these drafts was produced after an in-class invention exercise that focused on using journalists questions (Who, What, Where, When, and Why) to generate material about the student's topic of choice. It was the third rough draft Pertrina had submitted up to this point in the course. She brought the draft to class for peer review and submitted a copy of it to me for response. Accompanying the draft was a Letter to the Reader in which Pertrina specified some of the problems and questions she wanted her readers (both her peers and me) to respond to. After receiving the feedback, Pertrina submitted a revised version of the draft with a new Letter to the Reader. Again, she received feedback from her peers and me. With this draft she also included some of the research material she had used for the paper. After receiving my feedback on this revised draft, Pertrina took advantage of the opportunity to respond to my comments and ask any questions she had about the comments or the paper. I then responded to her concerns both orally and in writing. She decided to continue working on the paper to include in her end of the semester portfolio.


Student Writer's Letter to the Reader (accompanying the following draft)

My goal of this paper was to inform you about different things in college life. I choose The Freshman 15, because it is commonly known. In this draft, I talk about what it really is and how it can affect you. Not to many students look at the problem the way I did in this paper. I tried to be informative, to let you, the reader, know that it can be more than just 15 pounds. In the opening paragraph, I let the "Freshman 15" talk. I did it this way to make the reader think. I felt that if I started it off by saying "The Freshman 15 is . . ." it would not give the same impact.


  1. Do you think my strategy worked to get my point across?

  2. I think that paragraph 2 was short, should more information be added, or was it enough?

  3. If more revisions are to be made, what are your suggestions? For one, should I give some examples of people who have been affected by it?


Student Writer's Letter to the Reader (accompanying the following revision)

My goal of this paper was to inform you about how college students are affected by the Freshman 15. I talk about what it is and how it can affect us all. I tried to be informative, and started off funny so the reader will want to continue to read. In paragraph one, I open up telling you what the Freshman 15 is. I give characteristic of it. In the second paragraph I tell about how it affects people by leading to eating disorders. I tried to be informative, but is it boring? My biggest problem came with the third paragraph. I ran out of things to say. What can I add to this paragraph to give it more length, and make it better. My conclusion contained methods that may help you to deal with the Freshman 15. Overall what did you think of my revision. My main problem with this paper is that I am too informative. I think it makes it boring, and I feel that it takes away from the real purpose of why I was writing about the Freshman 15. Do you feel that I stuck to the topic at hand? As a reader, what do you think I can do to make this paper informative, but fun to read? Also is there things that I need to take out? Is my transition from paragraph to paragraph easy to follow?

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