Taking Essay Exams/ Textual Analysis

-In this class your midterm will be an in-class essay and you will be expected to take the GWT before you graduate. It is important to understand the most effective way to complete an essay with little to no time to prepare and plan. -Once you are presented with the prompt the first thing you should do is, consider the rhetorical situation presented to you in the prompt. The prompt will usually give you a short passage and ask you to respond to a related question in a well-formed essay. (A well-formed essay means that there is a clear introduction, thesis statement, body paragraphs with appropriate evidence and a conclusion.)

-The purpose of a essay exam, for our uses, will be to analyze a passage and apply it to your own personal experiences in a well formed essay. -The audience will be your instructor for your in-class essay but when taking the GWT it will be two anonymous readers scoring your essay using the same rubric and criteria-The genre is going to vary based on the subject and prompt. Look for key words such as argument, evaluate or explain.-The stance is usually determined on a personal level, but must be well-thought out and critical. Your stance must be consistent throughout the essay which is one of the challenges of a timed essay exam. -Since the medium of an essay exam is handwritten, it is important to make sure that your handwriting in legible so the reader of you paper will not struggle to understand your ideas.

-Remember the main purpose of an essay exam (and the GWT) is to test how you write, not how much you know about a subject. -Keep an eye for key words that indicate how you should answer the question posed by the prompt: analyze, apply, agruge/prove/justify, classify, compare/contrast, critique, define, describe, evaluate, explain, summarize/review, trace. -Keep track of how much time you are given for the exam. You should have this information ahead of time (the GWT is 75 minutes, our in-class exam is 65 minutes) and plan accordingly.