Meeting #1 - Find Your Superhero Self: Introduction to the Process and Brainstorming (2 hours)

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During this all-important initial step in the essay-writing process, the instructor and you will work together to find the best angle in which to deliver your message to the admissions counselor who will be reading your essay. To this extent, we brainstorm ideas by imagining what you would look like as a superhero. What would your powers be? What tokens, trinkets, or symbols might adorn your outfit? This part of the essay writing is all about establishing what image we want to give the reader when he/she is done reading your essay. 

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At the end of the lesson, you will be asked to come up with six different lead sentences (the "hook") for each of the six possible topics suggested on the common app using the ideas we discussed in the lesson. This is to determine which concept you enjoy the most.

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Meeting #2 - Choose the Best Path: Reviewing Topic Sentences and More Brainstorming (2 hours)

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During this stage of the essay development, we will review the six different topic sentences you came up with for homework and make a final decision on which one is going to be the right fit for the type of essay we ultimately want to create. Then we will discuss ideas about what to include in that essay for our first draft.

 

At the end of this lesson, I will work on my "mock draft" and will load it into a Google Doc. Once completed, you will then be asked to come up with your own rough draft based wholly, in-part, or without consideration of that mock draft. 

 

What is a mock draft? To me, the mock draft is the heart of my essay-writing process with my students. For this stage, I create my OWN essay following the guidelines set forth by the admissions department. I use my own unique style and structure to create a kind of parallel essay that gives form to the ideas expressed in our one-to-one meetings. In this sense, the mock draft is a kind of model that shows the student, more concretely, what the essay could be. During this stage of the process, I use my own experiences and my own observations, and the student is expected to fill-in, Mad-Libs-style, their personal revisions. Often, it is just the thing needed to catalyze the student's excitement to begin their own version of the same essay.

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Meeting #3 - Turning Ideas into an Essay: Draft Revision and Re-writes (2 hours)

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For this part of the essay-writing, we look at your first draft and assess it based on a variety of factors: How accurately does it represent the image you want to project to the reader? How effectively does it answer the question in the prompt? How well does it flow? Are there opportunities for creative/stylistic flourishes that might wow the reader? Is the language appropriate throughout?

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At the end of this third lesson, I will ask you to make revisions or re-writes based on the comments we recorded during the meeting. You will also be asked to read the essay to a few close friends, teachers, or family members to get at least two additional opinions for consideration. We are approaching a final draft, now.

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Meeting #4 - Getting to a Finished Product: Finalizing Your Draft (2 hours)

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For our final lesson, we will work together to make last-minute edits and minor changes before we are ready to put the essay into "print" so-to-speak. This meeting will consist of reading and re-reading what we have until the student is absolutely in love with the finished product. The student will then print out and submit their application essay by the essay's deadline.

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