Think back over your years as a student and find some memorable experience--good or bad, happy or sad--that you had in school. Maybe it was a time when you did something really well or even heroic. Or one when you botched something or when someone made you feel humiliated. Maybe it was something so funny you couldn't stop laughing and your sides ached. Or it was so terrible that you still have bad dreams about it. Maybe you were very angry. Maybe it was the best thing that ever happened to you--or the worst.

        Then tell us what happened in the form of a story. (Be careful not to confuse telling a story with describing a condition or writing a school composition. There are all kinds of stories, but they all have in common that something happens. Okay, so show your story happening.)

NOTE: About writing and manuscript form.

        When you write in longhand or with a typewriter, figure on doing AT LEAST two drafts--always! Think of the second draft as a clean copy, if you like--but don't be afraid to make changes as you copy. I almost always need at least three or four drafts to get a thing right. And for the final copy of all academic writing, computer-print or type it double-spaced or handwrite it single-spaced in dark ink on paper without a ragged edge. (Try to turn a pile of ragged-edge papers into a stack, and you'll see why smooth-edged paper will be important to your reader.)

        Writing with a word processor is a little different from writing with a pen or pencil because it's so easy to make changes that the difference between one "draft" and another may not be as obvious as it is when you write in longhand. (Because of that and the small viewing area on computer monitors, I print out my writing every so often, just to see it in a different way.)  You don't have to have a computer of your own, by the way, because the college has lots of computers for you to use for free. The main open computer lab is in Building A, just outside the library.