Understand the assignment

In your essay, you will describe a famous person. This is similar to a writing task you might need to do for a history class. You can focus on describing the person itself or its achievements/accomplishments. 

You can choose to either write a more formal essay about the person or write more creatively about it. 

Your essay should be 1-2 pages long, double-spaced. This is not a traditional five-paragraph essay. The goal of this writing task is to provide as much description as possible in a limited amount of space. For this assignment focus on quality, not quantity. It is actually much harder to write in a shorter amount of space, so this is good practice for learning to write with academic concision. 

Research

Remember that after you do enough preliminary research to brainstorm and choose your focus, you should do more detailed research about your topic so that you can make your outline. 

Brainstorm

A Google search for “famous people” might be good place to start if you aren’t sure what you want to write about. 

If you prefer to write about someone you know personally, you can brainstorm as well.

Choose your focus

Because this essay will be a maximum of 2 pages long, make sure to focus in your description on one aspect of the event you will describe. You will not be able to describe every single detail about such a historical place in just 2 pages, so instead focus on describing one aspect really well.  Do not attempt to include more than one of the following in an essay of this length.

Outline

Start with your thesis. What is the most important information you want to share about this person? Then consider how many paragraphs you will write (about 3 paragraphs total will fit in 2 pages double-spaced). What descriptions best support your thesis? Use those descriptions as your topic sentences.

Add questions or quotes to help you develop each of your ideas. Think specifically about how to introduce your audience to a person they do not know.  Even if you chose a well-known person as your topic, approach your descriptive piece as if you know your audience has never heard of that person. Pretend that your descriptive piece is the first they have heard about it. 

Introduction

Your introduction should start immediately with a thick description. A thick description means that rather than saying a simple fact with basic words, you will create an image with your words. You can paint a picture in the minds of the readers with the words you use to describe the event. 

Simple: "Mrs. S cares about her students a lot." 

Thick Description: "Mrs. S is the type of teacher that you always feel comfortable around, and you know she deeply cares about the success of each and every student."

Do not attempt to tell every single detail of the event in your short descriptive piece. Do not attempt to create an entire life history in your short essay.

You will need to give some background information on the topic in the introduction. However, keep the word count limit in mind and keep the background information general, so you have more room to describe the topic in detail in the body paragraphs. 

At the end of your introduction paragraph, you should give your thesis. The thesis should describe the person in very specific terms.

Example:

Teaching can be a difficult career that many people are not capable of handling.

At the end of your introduction, you should state your thesis. The thesis should describe the person in specific terms.

Mrs. S became a teacher and showed continued perseverence, consideration for her students, and determination in the way she taught.

Body

Your body paragraphs should give reasons and evidence to support your thesis. As you outline your body paragraphs, make sure you include clear topic sentences that support your thesis.

Shorter essays may only need 1-3 body paragraphs. Longer essays may need more body paragraphs. 

Consider the following example:

• Thesis: People remember Abraham Lincoln for his remarkable integrity.
  • Topic sentence: Abraham Lincoln made unpopular government decisions because he knew they were right.
  • Topic sentence: Lincoln was known for his honesty in his personal and work relationships.

This short essay only has two body paragraphs. When you have a fewer number of body paragraphs it is especially important that they are well developed with detail. For an essay that needs to fit a short page limit, writing about one or two topics deeply is better than writing about many topics only shallowly. 

As you plan each of your body paragraphs, remember that using sources will make your writing more credible and interesting. Use sources properly so that you do not plagiarize.

Conclusion

Your conclusion paragraph should start by restating your thesis. Then, you should write about the event in more general terms and apply their situation to the world more generally. End with a concluding statement.

Exercises: