Example CATW Prompt and Example Essays

Here is an example CATW prompt. Set a timer, read it, and write your best CATW paper. Then, look at the rubric and score yourself. After that, you can follow the link to see what would be expected to be included in your summary and look at some example papers with their scores.

Click here to read the prompt. Continue scrolling after you've practiced your own writing to see comments and example papers:

http://www.kbcc.cuny.edu/academicdepartments/english/faculty/Documents/catw_materials/catw_practice_playtimeisover.pdf

One thing I would like for you to notice while reading the student papers is how annoying and difficult it is to read messy handwriting. Remember, the scorers can't give you a good grade if they can't read what you've written!

CATW Practice Prompt

Set a timer for 90 minutes. Then, read the following prompt and write your best CATW-style essay. Only after you have written the essay, follow this link to see some comments and an example essay to compare yours to.

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The Friendship Bond

Friendship appears to be a unique form of human bonding. Unlike marriage or the ties that bind parents and children, it is not defined or controlled by law. Still, friendship fills a key role in our lives; it builds feelings of warmth and love between two people. In order for this to happen, the two most important building blocks of friendship are trust and acceptance.

A recent survey in Psychology Today questioned over forty thousand readers about what they looked for in close friendships. The survey participants stated that they valued, above all, loyalty and the ability to keep secrets. When commenting on friendship in general, similar words and phrases were repeated: "trust," "honesty," "accepts me even when he doesn't totally approve," "supports me," and "understands me." Learning about why a friendship ends can also give us valuable information about what we value in our friends. When asked why they ended a friendship, readers most often gave as their reasons feeling betrayed by a friend and finding out that a friend had very different views on issues that they felt were important.

Social psychologists have a theory for why trust and friendship seem to go together. Trust allows you to open up to another person and reveal the parts of yourself that are vulnerable. If the other person continues to accept you, then liking and affection will deepen, as well as trust. According to this theory, both members in a friendship must be open with and trust one another for their relationship to become deeper.

Excerpted and adapted from Parlee, M.B. (1996). The Friendship Bond. In W. R. Smalzer, Write to be Read: Reading, Reflection, and Writing. (pp. 69–71). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Writing Directions
Read the passage above and write an essay responding to the ideas it presents. In your essay, be sure to summarize the passage in your own words, stating the author’s most important ideas. Develop your essay by identifying one idea in the passage that you feel is especially significant, and explain its significance. Support your claims with evidence or examples drawn from what you have read, learned in school, and/or personally experienced.
Remember to review your essay and make any changes or corrections that will help your reader follow your thinking. You will have 90 minutes to complete your essay.

CATW Practice Prompt Example Essay

Before continuing, I urge you to find that CATW prompt you've been given and score your own essay. Be honest. Where are your strengths? What do you need to work on? Which section did you do the best on? Which one had the lowest score? This is most effective if you've actually forced yourself to stay within the 90-minute time limit. Now read below and compare your essay to the example passing essay.

This is part 2 of this introductory CATW lesson. If you haven't written your essay in response to the "Friendship Bond" in part 1, please do so before you continue with this lesson.

Before going to the sample passing essay below, keep in mind that writing is very much like art and sports where there are many different ways or styles of approach. You must consider finding your own style of writing. It would actually be dangerous if you try to play "copycat" and write in a style that does not fit you. 

Let me use an analogy to explain this. Let's say you are a chef competing in a cooking competition and your background is in Asian-style cuisine where as your competitor has more of a Euro-Italian style of cooking. If you unwisely decide to copy your competitor's Italian cooking style (without having been trained in such a style), you will lose. In the same way, you do not want to write like another writer of a completely different style just because their essay is passing. You must find your own style of writing. Experiment with different styles and methods in your English labs and classes.

If you've written an essay in response to this prompt on your own, a sample passing essay can be found at:

http://jjc.jjay.cuny.edu/erc/act/writing/ex1.pdf






Copyright: © 2011. This document is the sole property of Amadeo Constanzo. You may use this article for free on your web site, blog, or other publication if and only if you include this entire copyright notice including the following links and statement. Other free teachings from Amadeo Constanzo can be found at SpirFit.org/Academy/catw and SpirFit.org