Purpose
This essay gives you an opportunity to practice and receive feedback on your argumentation and critical thinking skills (e.g. evaluation, analysis, and synthesis). It is also an opportunity to act on the feedback from previous essays to improve your essay and paragraph structure, thesis statements, use and integration of evidence, and MLA formatting/referencing.
Question
Many students report being inspired by the reading in this class. In 1200 words, answer and defend your position on the following question: What advice would you give to college students looking to live a meaningful life? Use evidence from Man’s Search for Meaning, Brown’s work, Esfahani Smith’s work, and at least one other credible source to support your thesis and reasons.
Writing Instructions
- Include a strong, arguable thesis in your introduction. Underline your thesis statement.
- Support your position with reason and evidence.
- Include at least four credible, scholarly sources in your Works Cited page and refer to each of these sources at least once in the essay. Man’s Search for Meaning must be one of your sources.
- Present and refute at least one possible counterargument. How might someone argue against your thesis or one of your claims? Why is your argument still stronger?
- Use the feedback on your previous essays to keep improving your work and grades. I do look back at the suggestions I’ve made previously to ensure that you’re not making the same mistakes again.
- Refer back to these instructions and the English 1 essay rubric frequently to make sure you are meeting the expectations.
