Lesson 4: Prewriting: Process Analysis

OBJECTIVES

For this exam, youll

¦ Use prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing to write

formal, college-level essays

¦ Distinguish between different patterns of development

¦ Apply an appropriate pattern of development to a specific

purpose and audience

¦ Develop paragraphs using topic sentences, adequate

detail, supporting evidence, and transitions

¦ Apply the conventions of standard written American

English to produce correct, well-written essays

ASSIGNMENT

Top'c _

How to balance Penn Foster studies with work, family, and

other activities and responsibilities

Drafting Your Essay

This assignment requires two paragraphs. Each paragraph

employs a pattern of development that was covered in the

reading for this lesson. Before you begin, you should re-

familiarize yourself with narration, description, and process

analysis by reviewing the required readings for Lesson 4.

For your first paragraph, use the narrative and description

techniques you learned in this lesson to describe daily activi¬

ties. Youll write about the activities you dedicate your time

to: schoolwork, family responsibilities, and your job. Dont

forget to include other pursuits such as hobbies, sports, and

volunteer and social activities. Since this is your prewriting,

write between 500 and 550 words.

In your second paragraph, focus on how you manage your

time to accomplish everything you need and want to. For this

paragraph, use process analysis to explain how you manage

your time. Consider the tools you employ such as a planner

or calendar, whether paper or electronic, or even a chart or list.

Again, write between 500 and 550 words, to clearly illustrate

your process for managing your busy schedule.

This is an example of what the description portion might look

like:

It has been a challenge to balance all the areas of my life since I became an online student. Each day, I struggle to

balance my full-time job, my personal life, and my school-

work. I work as a Physicians' Aid at Holy Cross Hospital.

Monday through Friday, I leave at 6:00am to make the hour and ten minute commute from my home so I can be

on time. My job is multifaceted. I help the nurses and

doctors by doing intake for their patients, taking patient weight and height measurements, temperature, and blood

pressure. I also go over each patient's medical history to

ensure eveiything is correct. Most of my job, though, is

focused on administrative duties. With all these responsi¬

bilities, my work day is a blur, and I often don't have time to take a break before it is 3:30pm and I begin my com¬ mute home. Even though my workday responsibilities are

done, my weeknight responsibilities often make me feel as though my day has barely started. I have two teenaged

daughters, Zella and Jade, so I spend much of my

evenings enforcing rules, dispensing advice, helping with

homework, and occasionally providing a shoulder to cry

on. Our dog, Gizmo, also needs attention. I must have

dinner ready for the whole family by 7 PM, when my hus¬ band gets home. After dinner, I am responsible for

cleaning the house. As if this weren't enough, I am

responsible for looking after my aging mother, since my

sister Alyce is only eighteen and can barely look after her¬

self. Two or three evenings a week, I go to my mother's

house, I pay her bills, help with household chores, and

provide her some much-needed company. I must also

complete my coursework. Though I like my job, I would like to help animals, not people. So, I enrolled in Penn

Foster's Veterinary Technician program. I find it very hard

to complete schoolwork amid my other responsibilities. I

am currently taking English Composition and Veterinary Office Management. I am really enjoying the Veterinary course. My English Composition course, however, has

been a big of a struggle. The readings for this course requires my full attention. I find the writing assignments in the English course interesting and applicable to my future career, but the amount of effort I must put into

each paper is exhausting. I need at least a two-hour

chunk of time in order to get any meaningful work done,

and that is hard to come by during the day with every¬ thing else going on in my life. I usually try to study around 11:30pm, once my children and husband have

already gone to bed. However, Gizmo is usually still

awake, and between him vying for my attention and my

sister texting me every three seconds, I am behind on my

schoolwork. Each night, as I stumble into bed around

12:30am, I wonder why I am putting myself through all

this.

Here's an example of what the process portion might look

like:

To help find a way to balance all the home, work, and

school responsibilities together, I decided to use some

time-saving techniques, ask my family for help with responsibilities at home, and set up a distraction-free

study space to help me balance my life. First, I started

saving time by planning out our weekly meals instead of wasting hours each night trying to think of what we should have for dinner. I also started making a grocery

list, based on my weekly meal plan, to save time while

grocery shopping. Before I made these changes, I wasted

several hours each week deciding what to make for dinner

or haphazardly picking out random items when grocery

shopping. Now that I have all those extra hours available,

I am able to devote about an additional hour each week¬

day evening to my school work. Second, I decided to call a

family meeting to delegate some of the chores and respon¬

sibilities at home to my husband and my energy-filled teens. Zella now handles all the laundry during the week

for both herself and Jade, Jade cleans the bathrooms

eveiy other weekday, and I now handle these chores only

Saturdays. My husband also agreed to cook or bring home

take-out two weekday nights per week, so that I would

only have to cook three weekday evenings. He also agreed

to take one of my three weeknight visits to my mother's so

that I could have more quality time with the kids, as well as more extra time for my schoolwork. This is a big relief.

With all this extra help, I now had a total of three full hours I could study eveiy weeknight. But I still needed a way to avoid distractions during my designated study time. So, for my third step, I converted our guest bedroom

into a dedicated office, since we so rarely get visitors any¬

way. I sold the guest bed and used the money to buy a sturdy office desk. Then, I got some good lights to help me see my schoolwork and a bookshelf on which I organized all my study guides and work materials. I close the door

whenever I am working so Gizmo can no longer devour my

schoolwork. I also advised my sister that I will be unavail¬

able each weeknight evening between 9:00pm and 12:00pm, and I shut my phone off and do not log into my email or messenger services on my computer during this

time, to avoid temptation. My new office has made is so

much easier to get my work done, and I'm now back on

track with all my schoolwork. I even have enough time left

over to take a full day on the weekends (Sunday) to relax

and spend time with family. Honestly, now that I have a plan and everyone has agreed to help out more, I don't

feel so stressed, I remember why becoming a Veterinary

Assistant is so important to me, and I know I can do this.

^.Essays must be typedj double-spaced, using a standard 12-point font and left justification. Use 1-inch margins on all sides. Each page

-must have a properly formatted header containing your name, stu-

¦ -dent number, exam number, page number, mailing address, and

5 email address (see!page 6 for an example). Name each document

i using a unique file name which will help you identify the file, such as s this Example: Process Analysis Johnson. Exams may be submitted in s Rich Text FormatorMS Word. Preview .your document before you i submit in order to ensure that your formatting is correct. You should r take care to check that the document you've uploaded is the one

s containing your final work,for evaluation.

SUBMITTING THE ASSIGNMENT

To submit the assignment, follow these steps:

1. Type the essay.

2. Save the document.

3. Go to your student portal.

4. Click on Take Exam next to this lesson 25020100.

5. Follow the instructions on the student portal.

EVALUATION RUBRIC Your instructor will evaluate your prewriting based on the

following criteria. Note that this assignment will be graded as either Pass or Return. A Fail grade will only be assigned in cases of plagiarism.

Pass Return

Skill Realized

Skill Developing

Skill Emerging

Skill Not Shown

Ideas and Content The writer addressed all three areas of his or her life: home and family, school, and work. The writer used narrative and description to show the reader what is happening in his or her life at the present time. The writer used description and process analy¬ sis to show how he or she manages his or her schedule. The content meets the requirements of the assignment.

Organization The writer followed the instructions and wrote two paragraphs. Each paragraph begins with a topic sentence that introduces the main idea: what is happen¬ ing in the writer's life; how the writer manages his or her time. Each paragraph is developed effectively and presents enough evidence use in the process analysis essay.

General Correctness

The writer used correct sentence structure, grammar, spelling and punctuation. The writer used spell and grammar checks and proofread the paper to check for errors in word choice and typos. The paper is reasonably free of errors that interfere with a reader's ability to understand the content.

Format The writer met the length requirement of 1,000-1,100 words. The writer used the required font, line spacing, and margins. The writer included the required information in the header at the top of the paper.