Essay Assignment #2 Shaped Observation Essay

							Essay Assignment #2: Shaped Observation Essay

3-4 pages, Times New Roman, 1-inch margins, typed and double-spaced

Write an observational essay about an intriguing place or activity in your community (either
where you live now or where you once lived). Your essay may be a description of a place or
activity observed once or twice, or a longer, more fully developed profile of a place or activity
based on intimate knowledge or observational visits conducted over several days. In your essay,
you will present what you have learned from your observations and/or familiarity in a way that
both informs and engages the reader.

However, your essay won’t be a simple presentation of a place or activity: you need to know, as
you’re writing the paper, how you want your reader to feel about the topic. Shaping your
descriptions so that your readers have a specific, intended reaction (the place is pleasant, or
mysterious, or threatening; the activity is absurd, a waste of time, an event not worth missing . . .
and so on) will give you the opportunity to have a more urgent, specific goal, beyond flat
observation.

Describing activities or places through specific, particular details is an important step in
recreating the place/activity for the reader. Scenes are often more vivid than summarized
description; you are encouraged to use them, but be sure to choose scenes that are consistent with
your intended reaction. Giving the reader a thorough sense of the topic is equally important: but
remember, your choice of not only details and scenes, but language itself, down to the smallest
word, can help manipulate your reader into having the reaction you intend.

Good luck.