09.05 - Resume and College Essay Structural Analysis

Today in class, students worked in small groups looking at a variety of college essays and resumes that I provided. The college essays were ones written in previous English courses by students and the resumes were ones that I had managed to collect from friends.

All personally identifying information was changed in both sets of documents.

Groups were tasked with analyzing and comparing essays or resumes to figure out how they were set up and put together. Possible points of analysis included:

How is this document set up?

How is information organized on the page?

What sort of details are given?

What sort of language is used?

What elements do all of the documents have in common?

What trends do you notice within the documents?

What elements seem to be the strongest?

What elements seem to be the weakest?

After working in small groups, small groups combined to form one large group in which everyone shared their responses to create a master list that looked at the structure of the resume or essay.

We will share out these master lists tomorrow.

Extra copies of the resumes and essays are available here:

Resume Folder

Past College Essay Folder

Homework:

Seniors - brainstorm possible essay topics

Juniors - brainstorm a list of resume-worthy life experiences

If you have not done so already, get a writing journal for our class. If you are having difficulty finding or getting a writing journal, check in with me.