Essay #3

Using Your Mindset to Help You Write with Power

“The fixed mindset limits achievement. It fills people’s minds with interfering thoughts, it makes effort disagreeable, and it leads to inferior learning strategies. . . Important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies. . . This is what the growth mindset gives people, and that’s why it helps their abilities grow and bear fruit.”  (Carol Dweck – Mindset: How We Can Learn to Fulfill Our Potential)

“You must learn—and for some reason you often have to relearn—how to churn out words wether or not your feel in tune with what you are writing. The precondition for writing well is being able to write badly and to write when you are not in the mood. Sometimes you cannot get to the magic except through a long valley of fake, dead writing. Though you must believe in magic, then, often you must be will to do without it.”

(Peter Elbow—Writing with Power)

In Writing with Power Peter Elbow explains that good writing doesn’t happen by magic. It take lots of writing and revision, a willingness for the writing process to be messy as you discover what you want to say and how to say it effectively. What kind of mindset is necessary embrace this type of process?

Write an essay in which you introduce your readers to Peter Elbow’s writing techniques. Then introduce your readers to Carol Dweck’s Mindset philosophy. Finally, explain how a student’s mindset can impact the success of their writing process? As you develop the essay, be very specific. You are teaching your readers how their mindset can help (or hurt) their writing.

Remember, you will want to develop an introduction that will grab the interest of your readers. You will want to develop strong body paragraphs, with specific examples that clearly illustrate your ideas for your readers. You will want to develop a conclusion that leaves your readers thinking and moves them to take action.

Your  essay  will need to be a MINIMUM of FOUR  FULL pages.  When you turn in your final draft you will need to include the following items:  

1. The final draft of the essay. Your essay must follow the format outlined in class.  Essays that are not typed in the format discussed in class will be returned unread and ungraded. Formatting errors will cause you to lose three points for each error. 
2. A LETTER to me in which you discuss what interested you about this topic.  Describe any difficulties you had with the assignment and how you attempted to overcome those difficulties.  And finally, what do you think the strengths of your essay are, and what would you still like to work on?  Keep in mind that this last question is not simply an opportunity for you to “sell” your work.  I want your honest assessment.  Your letter should be one page hand-written.  Don’t try to write the letter in the five minutes before class.  I want to see that you have put some thought into these questions.
3. All rough drafts, prewriting, peer reviews, and any other activities we do in class related to this assignment. 

BE SURE TO EDIT AND PROOFREAD YOUR ESSAY CAREFULLY!

When you come to class the day your essay is due, your packet should be ready to go.  I will not have a stapler or paper clips with me.  You need to take care of all of this before you come to class.