Over-break writing steps

[JodyI]

Students/Parents: (Parents, please forward to your student if they are not included on the email list)

Below is the link to the KY RTL essay, due March 15. We'll be working ahead of the deadline and getting this done in Feb.

Over Christmas, remember to do the following:

1) Check out the link for the contest. Read some past winning essays.

2) Decide which topic you want to cover. Write down a preliminary thesis idea.

3) Research to find sources. frc.org, Focus on the Family pro-life links, and National Right to Life are great places to start. If you have any others, feel free to share. This essay contest often appreciates including specific examples from people's lives. Write an essay that sparks your own interest and imagination but also check out previous winners to see what sort of content they have looked for in the past. There is usually a pretty broad range of well-researched essays and more personal experience essays. We will fall in the camp of essays backed up by research…but do look to include examples of real-life people if it fits your topic. Very open-ended for what approach you want to take for your topic.

4) Write your source list (you need 3-4 sources or more).

5) Start on your notecards, as discussed in class. No need to do a bunch, but start with about 5 or so to get your feet wet. If you want to do more, great. We'll probably end with about 50 notecards max for this short of an essay. We'll tweak that as we go. There is a link on the essay contest page that gives you word count specifications, etc.

Excited to see your work on this. I have been really impressed with the progression of writing skills I've seen over the last essay.

Keep up the good work!
Mrs. Ingalls

PS If the links don't snow up in this context, please check your email. I copied and pasted from there.