Descriptive Essay Example

By: Sean Savoie 

            If a professor in an American History class tells you to write an essay about the meaning of being a United States citizen, first ask if there is a restriction on the form of the essay (the mode of development). Again the major modes are exampling, description, narration, definition, comparison and contrast, classification and division, process, cause and effect, and argumentation. Many professors allow flexibility. 

            “What does it mean to be American?” is a massive question for an essay topic. First, consider the scope. Having more words and time allowed to write the essay is nice. The shorter essays are certainly more difficult to master. Assume that you are given one hour to write an essay on the above topic and must choose a suitable way to address the issue.  

            Read the example essay response below to see if it captures the meaning of being a U.S. citizen. 

My father, who I lovingly call “Papi”, has lived the “American Dream”. Books about modern America could be written based on the lectures he gave me when I broke rules or showed a lack of integrity. One eye would be slightly closed, with the other staring straight through me. Needless to say I was standing during the long tirade, as was he, searching intensely for my motives and trying to understand my admittedly confounding personality. At the time, I would much rather have simply been hit, but I now, in retrospect, understand the value of the lectures that reached the wee hours of the morning, even until dawn. The worst possible transgression was doing something wrong because I was following others (“If your friend walked off a bridge, would you follow him off the bridge?”); the second was telling a lie (“You remember what happens to people who tell a lie!”); the third was laziness (“I scrubbed the floors. And do you know why I scrubbed them?” he asks rhetorically, “Because they needed to be scrubbed.”) American poetry!

            I knew these lectures by heart. I could recite them. Long father to son talks of inspiration, integrity, desire, honesty, adaptability, purpose, love, disappointment, development, commitment, personal strength, sacrifice, compromise, and, most importantly “The Golden Rule”. Do to others as you would want them to do to you. All these ideas were wrapped nicely into an American and Roman Catholic identity.

            During my most formative years, Papi would say; “You know my family was poor. We had nothing except each other. My father was an alcoholic and I was the eldest son. I basically had to take my father’s place. I never sat down and relaxed if there was something that I could do to help. Our place was a dump! The third floor of an old tenement building,” he exclaimed, raising his voice in a slightly scary tone. “I simply will not let a son of mine be lazy! You have no idea of all the possibilities you have! You have everything that I did not when I was growing up!

            “The world does not care if you succeed or not. You have no idea yet how lucky you are to have been born in the U.S.A! The vast majority of people around the world would do almost anything to have the promise and freedom that we take for granted in this country! You have unlimited opportunity, which is largely the result of strong work values and education.”

            This speech was beautiful because it was true. My father, enjoying his middle-age, soon-to-be 66-year-old life, represents to me what people mean when they say “the American dream” specifically because he pushed, for the sake of my Mother, brother, sister and myself, to obtain financial security through diligent work both at his job and at home. He rose up from a very poor family that originally had escaped from a royal family of Dukes in France. Our family actually had its own army. I could not speak about this with Papi, however, because he would say almost angrily, “That means nothing! We are in America now! We do not think that way. People are equal and the idea of a royal family is abhorrent.”

            Papi had many trials and tribulations if for no other reason than that I put him through hell. Nevertheless, true to form, he worked his way up in sales to the point where he was president and CEO of one of the largest plastics companies in the world, whereupon he decided to start his own business, which he still operates. I personally hope he knows when to retire, but imagine he will always work in some way. The American dream is all about work. Opportunity exists or not, yet people who do not seize opportunities never fully live the American dream.

End                       

            Notice how the essay makes its point by describing a person. Other modes are possible. With an essay question “What does it mean to be American?” a writer could use comparison and contrast (How America is different from Cuba), process analysis (How to be American), definition (What is the exact meaning of “American”). The form of an essay is chosen based on the function of an essay, yet the two are completely independent. Think outside of the box when possible.