2. Thesis Statement Read your thesis statement: Does it state the topic of your essay? Does it present the main ideas (past vs. present) that you will discuss? Does it state your opinion or the effect of the change on you?

3. Critique these thesis statements: Thesis 1: My brother is really mean to me. Thesis 2: When we were younger, my brother and I were best buddies, but now we can barely sit in the same room without arguing about something.

4. Paragraph 2 Check for: Topic sentence ( main point about your life BEFORE the change occurred. Details and commentary to show what you were like before the change. Add transition words to connect ideas.

5. Paragraph 3 Check for: Topic sentence ( main point about your life NOW that you have changed. Details and commentary to show how and why you have changed. Add transition words to connect ideas.

6. Conclusion Did you restate the thesis so that your reader knows the focus of the essay? Did you explain why the change is significant (important) to you? Did you explain what you learned because of the change? Did you explain how the change may affect your life in the future? Did you end with a final statement to wrap up your essay?

7. Revising for descriptive details Add sensory details ( what will help your reader understand the sights, sounds, textures, etc.) Add a simile or metaphor to make your description vivid. Replace boring verbs with vivid verbs – use a thesaurus or dictionary

8. Revising sentence structure Look for short, choppy sentences that could be combined using a semi-colon.

9. Adjectives Look for places where you could add descriptive words to show what kind, which one or how many? Use the adjectives list for ideas!

10. Adverbs Look for places where you can add words to describe when, where, how and to what extent things happened. Use the example adverb list for ideas.

11. Read your entire draft softly. Correct missing words. Look for misused words. Correct sentence fragments and run on sentences.