Format
Heading
Introduction
Body
Conclusion
What is the moral of your story? What is the lesson that we the reader are to get from your experience? Write a paragraph that explains your moral. This paragraph goes at the end of the story. Note: you need a transition sentence that will connect your previously last paragraph to this new last paragraph.
Check list worth 14 points. Each item is yes or no. If yes, then you get a point. If no, then you do not get a point.
Tragic Hero Essay
A Tragic Hero is (1) a good person (2) is better than others (3) can solve most any problem. You must show, give examples of, how you are a tragic hero. Do not write, “I am a good person.” You must let the reader decide for herself that you are a good person. Describe things you did that show and prove that you are “a good person” and “better than others” and can “solve most any problem. Also, if you are good, these descriptions or stories will also come back into the story later on, near the end.
Tragic Flaw is your weakness. Describe it. Let the reader share in your emotions for it, both the good and the bad (ice cream: think of all the ways you could describe your love for ice cream, all the different flavors, toppings, types, colors, malts, Sundays, bars, twist cones, blizzards, etc. AND think of all the ways that some people—maybe not you, but some people—might feel bad about eating ice: guilt for eating all of it (think whole box), guilt for eating someone else’s, guilt for knowing you “pigged-out,” etc.
Problem/conflict—describe in detail. Describe how you did not create the problem. Describe how you were stuck with it. Describe how you tried to ignore it or avoid it or refuse it but it stayed around anyway and only seemed to get worse or more annoying.
Choice—describe the two choices you had. Describe what you thought would be the result of each choice. Describe how you knowingly went with the bad choice. Yes—you did not or may not have known the full range of negative consequences that your bad choice could lead to, but you did know that it was a “bad” choice.
Reversal of Fortune—Instantly, things began to go bad, but you didn’t know it. What little things started to go bad. This gave you a clue that maybe you might get caught. Describe those things.
Recognition—Ultimately you realized that your choice lead to catastrophe (bad things in your life, punishment, trouble, getting caught, facing your choice). Put in writing that you acknowledged (realized) that you, yourself, were the reason that the bad thing happened to you. In other words, at the end of your essay, you tell the reader, “I was to blame!” In doing this, you become a round character—one who changes, one who has grown up, one who is older, one who is wiser.
Each item above must be in (at minimum) its own paragraph. In other words, this essay must have a minimum of six paragraphs (one for "tragic hero," one for "tragic flaw," etc.) and probably should have more.
A paragraph must have five sentences: a short topic sentence, a longer version of the first sentence, an example of what you are talking about and/or elaboration on what you are talking about, a transition into the next topic / paragraph that you are going to talk about.
Tragic Hero Essay 4 (Instructions)
At this moment you have both an informal essay and a pattern-heavy essay (meaning your writing is tightly restricted to a predictable, repetitive, and slightly boring pattern). Sometimes that is good, but not for the type of writing (narrative) that we are doing now. Here is what you do:
Things that do NOT need an explanation:
Things that DO need an explanation: