Brad Pitt Profile with comments (Profile Assignment)—Contributed by Noke Glass
Before using this activity, I go over “Revising” versus “Editing” to make sure students know these concepts. Then I hand out this sheet and ask students to read the comments provided in the writing and revise particular parts, especially an introduction and a conclusion. After that, I ask them to share their revised version with class.
Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt was born in Oklahoma to Jane and Bill, a manager at a trucking firm. They later moved to Springfield, Missouri, where Brad would remain throughout childhood. [teg1]
In high school Pitt was involved in sports, debating, student government and school musicals. After high school, he was torn as to where to go, but finally decided on college.
Pitt attended the University of Missouri where he majored in journalism with a focus on advertising. He occasionally acted in fraternity shows. He left college two credits short of graduating to move to California. He had hopes of being a big star, but didn't know where to start.
[teg2]Before he became successful at acting, Pitt supported himself by driving strippers in limos, moving refrigerators and dressing as a giant chicken while working for "el Pollo Loco". [teg3]In 1994, he starred in Legends of the Fall[teg4], and his long hair and overall 'sexiness' made him People Magazine's [coveted] Sexiest Man Alive. The honor helped propel him even further.
Brad's first starring role in a feature film was in Dark Side of the Sun, The film was shot in pre-war Yugoslavia during the summer of 1988. As editing neared completion civil war tore apart the region and much of the footage was lost. In 1996, after a five-year search, all of the lost footage was found and returned to producer Angelo Arandjelovic, who is currently working on getting a distribution deal for the film.
He is banned from entering China because of his role in Seven Years in Tibet.
[teg5]His love life [teg6]has often been under the microscope, and he's dated many of Hollywood's elite. But his romance with Gwyneth Paltrow was front page news, landing him on People's cover almost weekly. The romance fizzled, however, when according to Paltrow, their careers and romance didn't seem to be able to mesh.
However, in 2000 he finally did settle down with Friends star Jennifer Aniston in a million dollar wedding in a secluded Hawaiin chapel. The wedding wasn't without incident, as Aniston's mother wasn't invited to the ceremony [teg7]and Paltrow seemed to be in hiding and later said that upon breakup with Pitt, "something within her died." [teg8] [teg9]
[teg1]Your introduction doesn’t seem to establish any sort of impression of Brad. Why did you choose this point to begin with? What are you trying to say about him?
[teg2]It seems you are trying to build up an impression of him here, but it is not quite clear to me what that impression is.
[teg3]These are good examples of jobs Pitt had before he made it big.
[teg4]You made a big jump here. Suddenly he’s a star!
[teg5]This is interesting to me; I never knew this before. But I would like to know a lot more about it!
[teg6]You made another big jump here, from his movie roles to his love life.
[teg7]That’s too bad. Do you know the reason?
[teg8]This is a good quote, but I am not sure why you decided to end the profile with it. Wouldn’t it be better to conclude with something about Brad Pitt?
[teg9]Overall, I learned some new things about Brad Pitt’s career. At the same time, as a reader, I was not clear about the dominant impression you were trying to convey. Also, as I said in the comments, I felt that you jumped suddenly to new topics several times. And I think that if you compare the introduction and conclusion, you’ll see that they are about very different topics. Shouldn’t they be related somehow?