Unit Objectives: Essay Exams

Overview:  Essay exams are unavoidable in a college setting.  Even though many instructors rely heavily on machine-scored, multiple-choice tests, many others still feel the best way to test that you know what you know is by having you write about it in detail.  This unit focuses on the four types of essay questions most used in college essay exams: Summative, comparative, elaborative, and explicative.  These four types of questions will be practiced in a “live” setting—you will sit through exams and be graded according to your performance—thus giving you performative practice in writing essay exams under the pressure of being graded.  The work we will do in class will help you to identify main points, make comparisons among diverse sources, apply knowledge from one source to the information in another, and to tease out relationships among varying sources.

Assignments:  This unit will consist of numerous in-class and homework assignments designed to prepare you for essay exams in general and for the specific exams you will sit for in this class.

            There will be two (2) separate exams based on specific articles from the packet.  The articles are all related to a single subject (definitions of literacy), and they build upon and relate to each other in a variety of ways.

            The grade for this unit will consist of the averaged grades of your essay exams (homework grades are figured as a separate grade that consists of all homework and in-class assignments for the whole semester).  This single grade will then carry the weight of a single paper grade—10% of your final grade for the course.

Grading Criteria: A successful essay will contain these features:

            An explicit thesis statement

                        Does the thesis clearly state the subject?

Does it define the direction of the essay?

Does the thesis directly answer the question?

            Substantial development and support of the thesis throughout the essay

                        Do the points made in the essay match the claim of the thesis?

                        Are the points supported with examples from the text?

                        Is the essay focused on the thesis only?

            A clear topic sentence for each paragraph

                        Do the topic sentences clearly state the focus of the paragraph?

                        Does each topic sentence transition from the former paragraph?

            A conclusion that ties the points of the essay together

                        Are all the points of the conclusion found within the body of the essay?

                        Are all the points of the body found in the conclusion?

                        Does the conclusion follow from the thesis?