Mitch Cox, an English teacher at Orange High School, set up a workshop that teaches juniors how to write an effective essay for college. The workshop lasted from 6:30 pm to 8:15 pm Monday, May 20 and was held in the OHS media center. Stephen McLaughlin, the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Duke University, led the workshop. About thirty students came to learn about the skills needed to write an interesting and quality college essay.
The workshop started out with an NPR clip of students at a Washington D.C. school stating how they wished they would have written their college essays before the turmoil of fall semester. Cox advised the juniors to write six or seven drafts of their essays before sending them to colleges and to start them during summer. He also handed out notes of different essay questions asked on the Common Application which is accepted by many local colleges such as UNC-CH, Wake Forest, and Duke. The notes also included tips for writing the essay which must be between 250 to 650 words. Cox said that the word count, however, should be the last thing on the student’s mind when first writing their essay.
McLaughlin started off with having the students close their eyes and imagine walking to their front door. He asked them specific questions to remember like “what sounds do you hear as you are walking up to your house?” and “how do you feel as you walk into your house?” Including feelings in the essay were stressed because they are very important in creating a connection between the writer and reader.
The students were allowed to then write for five minutes and start their essay to that question. A few students such as Ryan Farrell and Anastasia Zitko offered to read their essay out loud. Alliteration, onomatopoeia, and imagery is what made their writing effective according to Cox. For the students’ braveness of reading out loud, they were awarded slinkys.
A packet of three student essays that were sent to Duke were passed around to the students. After reading them they discussed which ones were more effective and why. All of the essays were ones that were adequate though most students agreed that the last essay was far superior to the other two.
The workshop concluded with students being able to ask Mr. McLaughlin questions. Some students even stayed after to have specific, elaborate questions answered.
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