In-Class Essay Story/Tips

Once at CSU Stanislaus, they made me take an "in-class essay," or rather a mandatory Writing Proficiency Exam required for upper-division English courses, on a Saturday morning for a fee. I had this crazy idea that a second bachelor's degree would puff up the GPA so I could enter graduate school, and taking this timed essay would allow entry into upper-division English courses at their school.

Anyways, the prompt asked "What is the worst job you have ever had or imagine having?"

Students might remember this from Blackboard No.1.

My response was "Administering this essay is the worst job I can imagine..."

Of course, if I gave it more thought, I'm sure I could think of something else. My main objective was completing the essay though with a topic that could reach a certain number of pages within the required time frame. Whether or not I believed the people giving out the test had the worst job, I knew I could make an arguable essay out of the idea.

Also, writing an outline on the side before writing the essay helped with the organization. This only took a few seconds.

A lot of students at this school revert to the 3-point/5-paragraph in-class essay model (and even for their take-home essays). It is not technically wrong, although there is no rule stating there must be three points in the thesis statement or five paragraphs overall.

Instructors at the lower levels make students write this way to help students understand the essay structure, but in graduate school we used to laugh at the five-paragraph model.

To conclude, remember the main objective is writing a sound essay, whether or not the essay is something one personally believes in.

In addition, it is much more interesting to read an essay that takes a definitive stance, rather than one where the author states off the bat "there are pros and cons to this topic...and no definite answer..but here are the pros and cons."

The in-class essays in this class are not graded harshly. In fact, I've been way too kind with them compared to the take-home essays.

The points above are just tips to keep in mind in higher writing courses.