Category: Essays

Compose a narrative essay (see https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/04/) with three examples from your personal experience that illustrate your connection to water, that is, examples of your blue mind. Examples may not include the drinking of water, but they may include any body of water that touches you, including the ocean, rivers, lakes, ponds, waterfalls, rainfall (but not lightning, thunder, tornadoes, etc), or Las Vegas (or any) water fountains. Your examples may be light-hearted or humorous (touching on feelings of delight, surprise, happiness, or satisfaction), serious (touching on feelings of fear, concern, or dread), spiritual (reflecting on feelings of reflection, meditation, sense of well-being, contentment, one-with-the-worldness), sensual (touching on the sensations your body experiences in or underwater while swimming, snorkeling, or scuba diving), creative (describing works of art, including prose, that you have created that were inspired by water), or healthful (describing the feelings of vigor, tiredness, or “rightness” that come from activities near, on, or within water). Your examples should be distinct and separate from each other. In other words, describe examples from three different times and/or places. Failure to provide unique examples will result in a 10-point deduction per occurrence. Dig deep inside your mind and memory to provide thoughtful, descriptive, heart- pounding, beautiful stories. Your essay must be composed of a beginning (an introductory paragraph that describes the point of your story and what the rest of the essay is about), a middle (your three distinct examples), and an end (your final thoughts. A properly formatted essay will, therefore, have at least five paragraphs. Spelling, capitalization, grammar, sentence construction, paragraph construction, and other rules of English apply, and will be graded. You may use first person (“I”). You may not, for any reason, quote anything, or use anyone else’s words. Essays with error of structure or that include quotes will be given a zero until rewritten. You will be given one opportunity to rewrite your essay for full points. Plagiarized essays will receive a zero without the option to rewrite. Essays will be graded according to the following:
A 10-point deduction will occur for each non-unique example, or for examples that have nothing to do with the assignment.
Essays with three errors or fewer will receive 30 points (full points).
Essays with 4-6 errors will receive 20 points.
Essays with 7 or more errors will receive 10 points.
Not submitting an essay will result in zero (0) points