3310 HUM MOD 6 ESS

Overview: 

This essay is an extension of your discussion board and asks that you put your initial brainstorming into a more formal paper, connecting your observations about the literature to the idea of a life significance and worth.

Instructions: 

1. Reflect upon all of the reading that you’ve done this semester and choose one text that has had the most impact on your personal development. Since this is about you, it is a personal narrative, so you can use first person pronouns (I /me / my).
2. Explain what specific elements or moments in the text contributed to your development (use specific moments or passages from the story, poem, or play), and what time of development occurred (feel free to use the passages from the textbooks’ ‘why’ we read literature section).
3. Use three specific examples from the text.
4. Finally, how might reading this work contribute to your understanding of “a life of significance and worth” (which is a quote from the Indiana Tech Mission Statement)? This can be based on the life of a character in the text, but also should connect to your own life.
5. This paper should contain reflective moments, but also analytical moments, so be sure to quote from the text at least three times. As usual, use standard essay structure (organization, body, and conclusion) MLA format and include a Works Cited page. This will likely take around two pages to complete.

Sample Outline:

1. Introduction: 1st sentence – connect with the reader over a common observation about personal development. 2nd sentence – introduce the text that had the most impact on your personal development (including author first and last name plus the title in quotation marks). 3rd sentence – explain what aspect of your personal development this text spoke to and why. 4th sentence – thesis statement – The [short story/poem] “Title” by [author first and last name] supported my personal development with three specific moments [or elements], and it enhanced my understanding of what constitutes a meaningful life by [reason].
2. First, “Title” supported my personal development with [specific moment or element #1].
   1. Properly quote from passage and cite intext.
   2. Explain how it supported your personal development.
3. Next, “Title” supported my personal development with [specific moment or element #2].
   1. Properly quote from passage and cite intext.
   2. Explain how it supported your personal development.
4. In addition, “Title” supported my personal development with [specific moment or element #3].
   1. Properly quote from passage and cite intext.
   2. Explain how it supported your personal development.
5. Lastly, “Title” enhanced my understanding about what a “Life of Significance and Worth” means by [reason].
   1. Properly quote from passage and cite intext.
   2. Explain how it enlarged your understanding of what a meaningful life is made of.
6. Conclusion: recap thesis statement in different words, recap main points or examples from the body paragraphs, and offer the reader a reflection about how literature can be useful in making meaning in life.

*don’t forget your works cited page for the text that you’ve chosen. Use our model works cited entry provided on the discussion board to help.