ENC1930Prof. Anderson

Major Essay 3 – Write to Evaluate a Movie

Objectives

For this assignment you will write a 500+ word evaluation of a contemporary American movie. This essay will showcase your ability to work through the entire evaluation process and utilize criteria for evaluating a movie that you develop in your blog. Developing these criteria and evaluating your selected movie will involve analysis, evaluation, and critical thinking. Your detailed review of the selectedmovie will give you the opportunity to interact with one of the dominant forms of American media and practice informal English writing.

Rhetorical Context

The purpose of this assignment is to evaluate a movie of your choice. You are writing this essay with an intended audience of moviegoers who could potentially be interested in the movie you are evaluating. This audience should be considered professional and informal rather than academic. As such, your writing should be engaging, objective, somewhat persuasive, and informative. It may have some first or second person writing but should focus mostly on the criteria you have developed and specific examples of the way your selected movie meets or fails these criteria. Your essay should fit the genre of a movie review. This genre can be considered closed form prose and should have a clear thesis, introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

Requirements

The following criteria must be met in order to receive full credit for your work. Failure to comply with any of these requirements will penalize your grade:

  • 500+ words
  • MLA Format with 12 pt Times New Roman font
  • Develop criteria for evaluating a movie in your blog
  • Evaluate a movie of your choice using these criteria
  • Thesis driven, closed form prose
  • Semi-formal writing style appropriate to a professional movie review
  • Works cited page that references the movie you are evaluating
  • Original Work
  • Final draft due by 12-3 to Turnitin.com by midnight

Scoring Criteria

Your essay will be evaluated on five different criteria that are described below. Each of these individual scores are combined in order to determine your final grade. It is entirely possible to receive a high grade in one category but fail another, so keep all of these aspects of your paper in mind as you begin to write.

A= Excellent quality work that surpasses the guidelines and expectations of the paper

B= High quality work that fulfills all guidelines and shows adequate effort

C= Lower quality work that meets most (but not all) guidelines or shows inadequate effort

D= Below average work that does not comply with essay requirements or shows little effort

F= Extremely below average work

Intro & Structure:
The essay should have an interesting hook to grab readers’ attention and a short introduction that explains the movie & forecasts the criteria that will be used for the evaluation. The essay should be closed form prose and have clear transitions, good coherence,and logical progression of thought. / 20%
Thesis & Unity:
The essay should have a clear, credible thesis in the introduction that gives your evaluation of your selected movie. The rest of the essay should focus on this thesis and supporting it with evidence and examples. / 20%
Evaluation Criteria:
Your essay should have clear and reasonable criteria, forecasted in the introduction, that you use to evaluate your selected movie. These criteria will be created by you based on what you decide are the most important elements of a movie in that genre. These criteria will be explained and justified in your blog entry 8. / 20%
Evaluation Evidence:
Each criteria used for your evaluation should be further explained in the body paragraphs of your essay. The body paragraphs should give specific details, quotes, and examples of how the movie meets or fails expectations for each of these criteria / 20%
Mechanics:
The final draft of the paper should show sufficient editing and revision. It should also utilize college-level grammar and spelling. For a professional review, grammar and mechanics are often linked to the writer’s credibility. Your essay should also utilize MLA format and have a Works Cited page that references the movie you have selected. / 20%

Note: Information adapted from Professor Cayce Wick’s “Write to Evaluate a Walking Tour” assignment sheet.