i have 2 literature online classes due and i need someone to write the papers for me. they are not long but i dont have the time to finish them

i have 2 literature online classes due and i need someone to write the papers for me. they are not long but i dont have the time to finish them.



this is one example of a writing assignment.




4.5: Writing Assignment
Express voice by writing a letter to the editor.

After reading “Writing Assignment: Letter to the Editor”, write a letter to the editor stating your opinions on a moral issue. You will submit this writing assignment in your portfolio.

Writing Assignment: Letter to the Editor
In practically all newspapers there is a section for “letters to the editor.” This section is designed to allow readers of the paper the opportunity to write their opinion on current issues or events, and then have those opinions be published.

For example, one of the big issues in the news as I wrote this course was whether or not the Boy Scouts of America had the right to choose who can and can’t be scoutmasters. The reason it was a big issue was because the Supreme Court of the United States was about to rule on an important lawsuit. In the lawsuit, James Dale, a homosexual had been told by the scouting organization that he could no longer be a scoutmaster, because homosexuality was against everything that the scouts stood for. Dale decided to sue the Scouting organization because he thought they were guilty of discrimination. Dale won the case in the state of New Jersey, so then it went to the Supreme Court, where Dale lost. The Boy Scouts were victorious, and it sets a very important precedent for the rights of private organizations.

Nevertheless, during those weeks of the trial and then the weeks awaiting a verdict, there were many letters to the editor for or against the Boy Scouts. People wanted their voice to be heard, and so they wrote letters to the editor to be published.

Letter to the Editor Writing Assignment
First, find two more examples of good letters to the editor on an issue that interests you. Copy and paste the letter (if you found it online) into a Word document or scan the article and save it as a PDF and include them as part of the writing assignment that follows. See the Syllabus for more information on attaching documents for submission.

Next, you will write a letter of your own in which you will express an opinion on a current issue in your immediate world. It can be an issue at your school (such as lack of parking, lack of discipline, or problems with the curriculum, etc.), or your immediate community (a controversial politician or law, traffic woes, public safety, etc.). I do not want you to write about a national or global issue for the purposes of this assignment. Also, this letter can be on a serious topic, or you can choose a humorous topic. Pick one that will suit your “voice.”

Your paper should include the following elements:

Intro and Stance
Introduce the issue briefly at the beginning of your letter, and then take a clear stand as to how you view the issue. (No fence-sitting allowed.)

Body of Letter
Be sure to provide specific reasons and evidence that supports your view. If you just give opinion with no real evidence, or persuasive arguments, then your letter will be weak and unconvincing. Try also to order your arguments such that they build in their persuasiveness. In other words, start with your weaker arguments, and build up to your strongest argument. Make sure you have at least three specific arguments or evidences to support your view.

Conclusion
Last, make sure you end your letter with something to think about. You should also restate (not in the same words, but restate the same view/idea) your view so that the reader is completely clear where you stand and why.

Voice
Remember too, that the Six Traits focus for this lesson is voice. The reason I am having you write an editorial letter is because it lends itself well to allowing your voice to shine through. Really try to let your voice/personality come through the words. The best way to do that is by writing what you honestly think, writing about something that interests you, and including specific concrete details to support your view. Good luck.

Portfolio Submission
Put the two examples of letters to the editor that you collected with your letter, and put it in your portfolio to be submitted in lesson 8.

alexa73301 added on 06/21/12 at 05:23 PM (PST):

#1)


Writing Assignment
Write a personal essay using an extended metaphor.
Write a personal essay after reading the Extended Metaphor Writing Assignment instructions (you will submit this writing assignment in your portfolio in lesson eight).
Writing Assignment: The Extended Metaphor
Writing Assignment Video
Now that you have had read several examples of extended metaphors for life, you will write an extended metaphor of your own (in less than 300 words) that captures the essence of your life.
Now, before you panic, realize that I designed this assignment as an opportunity to have fun and be creative. Extended metaphors really can be fun even with your friends. For example, when I was in high school my friends and I came up with a couple of different extended metaphors to describe our dating life.
One of the extended metaphors compared dating to radio stations. The following gives you the gist of the idea. As you go through it, try to figure out what is being said in the extended metaphor.
Dating is like listening to a radio. There are a lot of radio stations out there, but only a few that are really very compatible with me. I don’t like country, rap, or elevator music. The whole point of turning the radio on is to try to find a station that plays the kind of music you like. Unfortunately, it seemed that most of the stations I liked always had static, or the reception just wasn’t working as well on my radio as someone else’s. Unfortunately, sometimes you got caught in an area where you could only find AM talk radio or country music. But even worse than that was when you found yourself in an area with no stations at all. The radio can be very frustrating at times too. Just when you think you have a station that is just right, it seems like an annoying commercial comes on, or it starts playing a song that reminds you of some of those other stations that you don’t like. Sometimes you can get sucked into a station that seems like one you like, but really it is just disguised, and soon enough the lousy music plays. Eventually I just got tired of the radio, and so I invested in a CD player on which I can play the music I want. Unfortunately, CD players aren’t perfect either. Occasionally there is a scratched CD, or the player just needs to be cleaned so that the music is clear again, but all in all a CD player is more enjoyable—even though it costs a lot more.




Writing Assignment: The Extended Metaphor, cont.
Anyway, my friends and I had other extended metaphors for dating as well. One of my other favorites compared dating to the light spectrum. Infrared was the ultimate date, and ultraviolet light represented the nightmare date. The best part about it was we could subtly talk about our dates in front of them to let our friends know how the date was for us. Red was good, violet was not fabulous, and of course if it was in the ultra-violet range, then we simply could say we were getting sunburned—which is, of course, bad.
In the college prep writing course that I taught the last two years, I gave the assignment to write an extended metaphor to describe the students’ dating life. Some of the comparisons included checking out a book in the library, a warm day in Siberia, and Baskin Robbins 31 Flavor Ice Cream Parlor.
Anyway, the point is that extended metaphors can be fun, and can express things in ways that are sometimes difficult to express otherwise.
Now, before you get started, I am going to give you my own example of an extended metaphor that describes my life, and then I’ll give you a list of examples that will help to get you thinking.
I am the original Leatherman. No, I am not talking about some fanatic who dresses in clothing garnered from farm animals. Nor am I talking about someone with thick, calloused skin. What I am talking about is the tool. This is the tool that McGyver would give his brain for. This is the tool that all real men carry on their belts because with it they can make Ethan Hunt (the Mission Impossible secret agent) look like nothing but an inexperienced girl scout.
As I said before, I am the Leatherman. Versatility is the key with the Leatherman. One moment it is opening a can of beans for dinner, and the next it is tightening the screws on a bicycle. It can go from being a pair of pliers to a pocket-knife in a matter of seconds. The Leatherman was mostly designed for work, but it is rather handy at play as well. It might be cutting wire one day, and then pulling a hook from a fish the next. The Leatherman proves to be of service to all that come in contact with it, and it single handedly can lighten a person’s load. Resourceful and dependable, the Leatherman all-purpose tool is good to have around.
Now, some of you out there might ask why not a Gerber, or some other wannabe brand? The answer—besides being quality, the Leatherman is a bit more slim.
List of Possibilities
• My life is a roller coaster.
• My life is like a Super Wal-Mart.
• My life is a WWII battle.
• My life is a greasy Big Mac.
• My life is like climbing Mount Everest.
• My life is a big classroom.
• My life is like my garden.
The last thing to consider when you write this assignment is to make sure it is a comparison that really works. For example, don’t compare your life to someone else’s life. Make sure the parallels work well to illustrate what your life is like at this point. We will be discussing voice in lesson four, but for this assignment, try to let your voice shine through. (See info about voice in your six traits packet.) If you are a funny person, let your writing be funny. If you are serious, it is okay to be serious. Don’t try to create a false voice as you write.
Assignment
Create an extended metaphor in which you compare your life to something specific and concrete for the purpose of letting the reader better understand what your life is like. Keep it to under 300 words.


alexa73301 added on 06/21/12 at 05:24 PM (PST):

#2)



Personal Narrative
Write a personal narrative describing an epiphany experience
Write a personal narrative after reading the Personal Narrative Epiphany Writing Assignment instructions. (You will submit this writing assignment in your portfolio.)
Writing Assignment: The Personal Narrative Epiphany
In the last writing assignment, you had the opportunity to consider where you are on your life journey by creating an extended metaphor that expressed the essence of your position in life right now. In this writing assignment you will have the opportunity to reflect on your position now, and consider one specific incident that influenced it. I will give you some restrictions, not to cramp your style, but to help you avoid some of the common pitfalls that often accompany this type of writing. So, jump in and enjoy the writing process. If you walk through these steps, you should be able to come up with an excellent idea and then express it in an interesting way.
Personal Narrative Writing Assignment
Write about an epiphany you have had that has had an influence on your life’s journey.
Definitions
• Personal Narrative: When the writer (you) is writing his/her own experience. This should be easier than a lot of other types of writing because (a) you are an expert about you, (b) you should be enthusiastic about your own experience, and (c) you have multiple options to pick from your experience. So, in other words, enjoy this writing assignment. It sure beats writing an analytical research paper about Shakespeare’s play Hamlet.
• Epiphany: A sudden realization in which you understand something (some truth, lesson, etc.) that you didn’t think about before. This idea is often portrayed in comics or cartoons as the “light going on” above a person’s head. Epiphanies can be big or small. For example, a big epiphany might be “life is painful.” A small epiphany might be, “nostrils were not made to put beans in them.”
Now that you have these definitions, you should understand a little better what you have been asked to do. In more simple terms, you are going to write about an experience in which you learned an important lesson that made a difference in your life.
So, let’s get started.
Brainstorm
The first thing you should do to get started is brainstorm as many ideas as you can think of in which you have learned an important lesson. For example, my list would look something like this.
I learned that:
• Large rocks in tall grass are not friendly to speeding mountain bike wheels—or the rider.
• When float-tube fishing, nets are a must.
• A hacksaw will take off a cast just as easy, and a lot cheaper, than a doctor.
• A momentary break in concentration can kill a cousin.
• Age 29 is not too young to have a heart attack.
• Ants are my friends.
• Smuggling gross food away from my plate at my grandma’s house was a key to survival when visiting her.
• My face was not meant to be part of the asphalt.
As you look at my list, I hope you notice two very important things. The first is that everything on my list is quite specific. Notice that I never said vague, boring things like the following:
• Life isn’t very smooth all the time.
• You should be prepared.
• Determination is important.
• Life is fragile.
• Life is fragile.
• Nature is amazing.
• Sometimes being nice is more important than being sincere.
• Accidents happen.
This list is actually the same as my first list. Notice that there are two “life is fragile” lessons. They are in the same order as the first list, and they refer to the same events. The only difference is that in my first list, I listed specific, concrete, experiences, and in the second I listed vague, non-specific lessons that probably put you to sleep.
The second thing I hope you notice about my first list is that being specific makes writing much more interesting. Don’t forget the lesson two information on ideas and content—picking a narrow, specific topic will always make your writing more interesting. Notice that you were much more interested in reading about my experiences when you read the specific ones. The vague ones probably didn’t pique much interest at all.
If you already made a list, go through it again and make specific any experiences that are stated vaguely. If you haven’t made a list, do so now, and think about specific, concrete experiences in which you have learned something.
Picking Your Most Writeable Experience
After you have brainstormed and come up with a list, decide which is going to make the best story. Which one can you develop the best, and which one ultimately shows an important lesson you learned about life?
After going through my list of possible writing topics, I narrowed the most writeable one to the one about the friendly ants and the one about taking the cast off with a hacksaw. After looking at these two, it was a hard decision, but I finally chose the cast/hacksaw experience. On the surface, this may not have looked as interesting as some of the other topics, but since I am the expert on all of these experiences, I (the writer) ultimately am the one that must decide what is going to be most interesting, and most appropriate for the assignment. And, in actuality, I wanted to write about the ants, but the end lesson that I learned with the ants was more of a global one, whereas the cast story is more personal, and will give a better insight into what specific events made me the person I am now on my journey through life. Therefore, I now have a topic to write about. You need to do the same. Once you have done that, proceed to the next step.
Before you proceed, let me give you a list of experiences that many of you try to tell that end up being very boring to read:
• how my boyfriend/girlfriend has changed my life.
• what my boyfriend/girlfriend means to me.
• my life story, and how it affects me now.
Try to avoid stereotypical topics like these.
Choosing and Organizing the Specific Concrete Details
Now that you have your event, you can get started telling it. Just remember to use specific, concrete details to re-create your experience. Also, be sure to discriminate between the details that should and shouldn’t make it in your story. You want to have a beginning that catches the reader’s interest, and then you will want to lead the reader through the story, throwing in the details that are important and interesting. Last, you want to have an ending that leaves the reader thinking, “Wow, well said,” or “Wow, great insight.” Don’t forget that our focus for this lesson is sentence fluency. Work on making sentences complete, smooth, and appropriate for the tone of your paper.
Now, get started. At this point, the writing process is slightly different for each person. Some of you will sit down and write most of your experience first, and then revise. Others of you will sit down and write the first paragraph and then revise that seven times before you move on to the second paragraph. Just understand that you should consistently ask yourself how the reader is going to perceive what you are writing. You will likely be continually revising all throughout the writing process. Thanks to word processing programs, this has become much easier.
I wish you could actually see me go through the process of writing this experience about the cast because you would see the revision process I talked about above in action. I am continually going back and forth in any text that I write, trying to achieve clarity and make what I write interesting. But, you don’t have that privilege, so what follows is my own example of what I expect you to do. After my example I include one student example from a student I had named Josh. I think you’ll enjoy it.
MY EXAMPLE: Do-it-yourself Cast Removal
We lost seven of our first nine basketball games. All we had to do to start winning was lose our starting guard—me—to injury. I broke the fourth metacarpel in my left hand just below the ring finger during Christmas break of my senior year. Of the nine games we played, I started all of them, and we lost all but two of them. Then, after my injury the team won sixteen of their last eighteen games. I could have learned many lessons from this experience, such as “I should have given up basketball nine games earlier,” or “everyone contributes to the team effort—some just do it better from the bench.” But, I learned much more than that.
Coach Ernst looked a bit surprised when I showed up dressed out and ready to practice with my bulging left forearm the next day. (In addition to the fiberglass cast, I wrapped it with a bit of padding and an ace bandage to prevent any more injuries to teammates.) I realized that he expected that I would sit and watch practices and still be a part of the team—at least in name, but I know he was surprised when I was ready to still work hard; especially considering I really had little chance to play the rest of the year. I realized that no one would push me except myself in this situation. So, I practiced hard that day, and every other day. The only reward was that I knew I was pushing myself as hard as I could, and by so doing I was also pushing my teammates.
Sweating profusely in a cast packaged up in an ace bandage created a stench that made the compost pile smell like perfume. I refused to stop practicing, and therefore the sweating continued. At first, I could wrap a fresh ace bandage around it to keep the odors in, but eventually they began to leak. Finally, I was afraid of both the stench and the mold that must have been growing on my skin, so I got the dish soap and injected it into my cast like a giant syringe. I then rinsed it out for a long time. I didn’t think the bubbles would ever stop coming out around the fingers. The next problem was drying the padding underneath the fiberglass. It took two days to dry, so then, instead of a sweaty stench, is was more of a moldy mildew. When I washed it again, I grabbed a 3/4 inch drill bit from my dad’s tool chest and carefully turned my cast into swiss cheese. It was much easier to wash and rinse, and then to dry it, all I had to do was drive around town with my holey arm hanging out the window for about ten minutes. This went on for several weeks. I continued to practice, and I continued to wash my aromatic arm. Padding began falling out about three weeks after getting the cast. Four weeks into it, the padding nearly disappeared entirely, and the washing stopped.
In the meantime, our team climbed out of their slump. I continued to find joy in pushing myself, knowing that I chose to practice. No coach forced me to. I also became the best cheerleader on the sideline. About the time the last padding fell out of what was left of my cast, I knew the cast was not doing me any good. The doctor wanted two more weeks in the cast, but the season ended two weeks later. So, I figured I would save my parents a doctor fee. I went to the garage, and pulled out the hack saw. The blade was a bit rusty, and I knew I needed to be careful, or else I would be seeing the doctor for another reason. The hacksaw tore right through the fiberglass, and in minutes the crusty, smelly, holey shackle fell to the floor.
Coach Ernst was excited yet concerned, and I finished the season in a new supporting role (of sixth man) that was beneficial to the team. I am also glad to report that we didn’t start a new losing streak when I returned.
I don’t know if the team would have done better without me getting hurt, or whether it actually did benefit the team to have me in a completely different role of practice dummy/ cheerleader, but I did learn one thing: ultimately, I am responsible for my own performance. In high school, I had always had coaches to push me, or English teachers to give me due dates, but once I left high school, my destiny depended much more on me. I learned when I broke my hand that I could just sit back and hope people had sympathy for me, or I could move on and push myself to higher levels, because in the real world only I would really push myself. I also learned that doctors are way overpaid. A fifty cent hack saw blade was a lot cheaper than a one hundred dollar doctor bill.
Notice that I really focused on one narrow experience, and I filled the story with specific, concrete, details.
The next story was written by a student of mine. I think you’ll enjoy this.
Worth Dying For
When I was in first grade I had a hero. No, it wasn’t Joe Montana. No, it wasn’t Jose Conseco. I didn’t think much of Arnold Schwartzenagger. It wasn’t Jerry Rice, Christopher Columbus, or Babe Ruth. I didn’t have a thing for firemen or the county sherriff. My dad wasn’t even my hero, and that’s almost forbidden to say. I idolized my next door neighbor Bryce. Bryce was every bit of four feet-ten inches tall, and weighed almost ninety pounds. (A man at age 7) Bryce could build anything, tackle anybody, climb any tree, kill any wasp, out-eat any living human, out-run any first grader, throw further than my dad, lift three times his weight and he feared nothing and nobody. He could even beat Mario Bros. in just three days. He was “da man!” Bryce could always beat me in anything we tried. He could pin me in seconds or knock me out with one punch, but for some reason he sometimes let me win. I thought I was “da man” just because I got to hang out with “da man.”
Bryce loved to go to the Lehi pool to go swimming. He would never fail to invite me, and usually my mother would let me go. He would always stay in the shallow section with me even though he could swim in water that was deeper than one hundred feet.
It was Saturday, and on the way into the pool we met this blond-haired girl. I think her name was Melissa. Bryce knew her from somewhere. I cared more about how ugly the colors of my swimming suit looked to pay much attention to her. When we got into the pool the stupid girl would not leave us alone, or at least Bryce. I couldn’t believe what a pair of lips she was. She went on and on about every cool and stupid thing that had ever happened to her. It drove me nuts. I told them both so, and to my surprise “da man” defended her. I then got the biggest lecture I’d ever known. Bryce got mad at me and told me to knock it off or I wouldn’t get a ride home with his mom. (How’s that for blackmail?)
Have you ever been so close to crying that you couldn’t see? Well that’s what happened, and it’s a good thing that water has chlorine or else I wouldn’t have had a wet-eye-excuse. Bryce told me not to be such a baby and that if I wanted to hang out with him and Melissa, I’d have to go over to the deep part with them. With that he ditched me and swam away with her.
“No problem,” I shrugged and grabbed the sides of the pool with both hands. They couldn’t tread water forever, and they would have to return to the edge sometime. After a minute of following an evil realization struck me. They were standing in the deep part—they didn’t need the side. I was officially ticked then. Nobody steals my best friend and doesn’t return him. It was time to learn how to swim.
I think I lost control of myself then, because the next thing I knew, I was standing on the edge of the high dive looking down three hundred feet to the bottom of the pool. I had to squint to see the distant water below me. I saw myself there beneath the killer waves, my head disconnected from my body. My arms shriveled up with weakness. I was an outlaw facing a firing squad. In mid-thought I stepped off. I spun around, but even with my Indiana Jones quickness my fingers missed the board.
I learned just how a fly feels when it hits the windshield. My insides were rising above my ears. I felt suspended above the water for an eternity. My legs rotated full force around me. I would have shot across the pool if I could walk on water. Why was I doing this? O, Bryce! “Da Whimp.” I was killing myself just for him. If I lived though this I wasn’t ever going to speak to him again.
My body tilted ever so slightly and I hit the water in sprawled position. I could hear the oohs and aahs from ten feet under. Somehow I managed to crawl across the bottom of the pool, and then up the sides to air. I said to myself that friendship was not worth dying for. From then on I convinced myself that I would not do some drastically stupid thing just for a friend’s attention. Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was thinking of peer pressure, and I’ve never yielded to drugs or any harmful substances because of a friend. I like to say this is because of the lesson that I learned at the Lehi Pool. And it’s true. Whenever I’ve been asked to do something that I thought was stupid, I’ve thought back to what I learned there. My belly flop always comes to mind. And, of course, I never talked to Bryce again, until the next day.
This paper is not perfect, but it really does a lot of things quite well. The voice, ideas and content, (specific concrete details), and the organization are the strongest parts of this paper. There are a few places where usage and sentence fluency could be improved, but overall those two are not bad. Word choice is excellent in some places, but there are others where it could also be improved.
Have fun writing your own personal narrative. Keep all of these things in mind as you write, and enjoy the process.
Hopefully these examples have helped you as you write your own personal narrative epiphany. Just remember to pick an interesting topic that is narrow, and then describe it in specific, concrete detail. Also, don’t forget that it should in some way show an event that has helped make you who you are today.





alexa73301 added on 06/21/12 at 05:26 PM (PST):

#3)




Writing Assignment
Express voice by writing a letter to the editor.
After reading “Writing Assignment: Letter to the Editor”, write a letter to the editor stating your opinions on a moral issue. You will submit this writing assignment in your portfolio.
Writing Assignment: Letter to the Editor
In practically all newspapers there is a section for “letters to the editor.” This section is designed to allow readers of the paper the opportunity to write their opinion on current issues or events, and then have those opinions be published.
For example, one of the big issues in the news as I wrote this course was whether or not the Boy Scouts of America had the right to choose who can and can’t be scoutmasters. The reason it was a big issue was because the Supreme Court of the United States was about to rule on an important lawsuit. In the lawsuit, James Dale, a homosexual had been told by the scouting organization that he could no longer be a scoutmaster, because homosexuality was against everything that the scouts stood for. Dale decided to sue the Scouting organization because he thought they were guilty of discrimination. Dale won the case in the state of New Jersey, so then it went to the Supreme Court, where Dale lost. The Boy Scouts were victorious, and it sets a very important precedent for the rights of private organizations.
Nevertheless, during those weeks of the trial and then the weeks awaiting a verdict, there were many letters to the editor for or against the Boy Scouts. People wanted their voice to be heard, and so they wrote letters to the editor to be published.
Letter to the Editor Writing Assignment
First, find two more examples of good letters to the editor on an issue that interests you. Copy and paste the letter (if you found it online) into a Word document or scan the article and save it as a PDF and include them as part of the writing assignment that follows. See the Syllabus for more information on attaching documents for submission.
Next, you will write a letter of your own in which you will express an opinion on a current issue in your immediate world. It can be an issue at your school (such as lack of parking, lack of discipline, or problems with the curriculum, etc.), or your immediate community (a controversial politician or law, traffic woes, public safety, etc.). I do not want you to write about a national or global issue for the purposes of this assignment. Also, this letter can be on a serious topic, or you can choose a humorous topic. Pick one that will suit your “voice.”
Your paper should include the following elements:
Intro and Stance
Introduce the issue briefly at the beginning of your letter, and then take a clear stand as to how you view the issue. (No fence-sitting allowed.)
Body of Letter
Be sure to provide specific reasons and evidence that supports your view. If you just give opinion with no real evidence, or persuasive arguments, then your letter will be weak and unconvincing. Try also to order your arguments such that they build in their persuasiveness. In other words, start with your weaker arguments, and build up to your strongest argument. Make sure you have at least three specific arguments or evidences to support your view.
Conclusion
Last, make sure you end your letter with something to think about. You should also restate (not in the same words, but restate the same view/idea) your view so that the reader is completely clear where you stand and why.
Voice
Remember too, that the Six Traits focus for this lesson is voice. The reason I am having you write an editorial letter is because it lends itself well to allowing your voice to shine through. Really try to let your voice/personality come through the words. The best way to do that is by writing what you honestly think, writing about something that interests you, and including specific concrete details to support your view. Good luck.


alexa73301 added on 06/21/12 at 05:26 PM (PST):

#4)




Spoon River Epitaph
Concentrate on the area of Word Choice by writing your own epitaph.
Write your own epitaph after reading the Create Your Own Spoon River Epitaph Writing Assignment instructions. (You will submit this writing assignment in your portfolio.)
Writing Assignment: Create Your Own Spoon River Epitaph
In this lesson, we have focused on the idea that you should consider now where you want to be in the future. Steven Covey called it “Beginning with the end in mind.” For this assignment you will write your own epitaph that catches the essence of how you would like to be viewed after you have died. If the final destination in the journey of this life is death, then where we end up at that point is rather important.
Review the beginning of Steven Covey’s excerpt. He talks about going to a funeral, and seeing everyone you know, and then you walk up to the casket and see that it is you in the casket. What I would like you to do with this assignment, is now imagine that you, the person in that casket, will get the opportunity to write your own epitaph.
Then, you will also want to review Edgar Lee Masters’ poems from The Spoon River Anthology, because essentially what you are doing in this assignment is the same thing he did, except yours is more personalized and predictive than his.
This shouldn’t be a terribly hard writing assignment, but I would like you to really consider what you would like to have accomplished by the time you die. As you prepare to write this, keep the following things in mind:
Write it in the first person. Write it as if you were able to speak one more time from the grave.
Be specific and concrete. You may need to make up names for future children or spouses, if you include something about them, but try to avoid being vague. Also, be creative yet realistic.
I suggest you write something about yourself, and then also write something to those who are left behind—a lesson of life you have learned, or something like that.
Whether you want to write it as if it were three years in the future or fifty years is up to you. You choose how far in the future you want it to be. Put the year in which this hypothetical death took place.
Last, I strongly recommend that you create a positive picture of your future. If you have had extremely negative experiences in your life up to now, in your epitaph try to describe how you overcame those negatives, and made your life the way you really would like it to be. Be realistic, but try to be positive.
The following is an example that I wrote to help you see a little better what I expect you to do. Remember to follow the instructions above.
Joe Jensen
I always tried to fit more in a day
than was humanly possible—kind of
like my garden. If I had planted fewer tomatoes
they might have produced better fruit.
Of course, I would rather overextend
myself than sit idle as a T.V. zombie.
And, I can say that my days were not
measured out in episodes of Seinfeld or
squandered with MTV.
I took Ashton and his brothers fishing regularly,
and ate the traditional fruit roll-ups.
It’s good we brought those, because we never
caught many fish. Really though, I always
knew that fishing had nothing to do with
catching fish.
I did not like dance concerts, but I accompanied
AnneMerie to her recitals and enjoyed them.
I was tempted to give my children everything
they and I wanted, but I resisted the urge,
avoided disaster.
I taught the children the joy of sowing a seed and
reaping the harvest — all by the brow’s sweat.
My dear Julie was equal partner in all things,
even if I was sometimes the weaker half.
Through the pleasure and the pain, I was
grateful for the fellow travelers, and the
opportunity to ride this train.


alexa73301 added on 06/21/12 at 05:26 PM (PST):

#5)



Your Personal Constitution
Practice effective organization by prioritizing your own values and goals.
List your values and prioritize them after reading the Create your Own Personal Constitution Writing Assignment instructions. (You will submit this writing assignment in your portfolio.)
Writing Assignment: Create Your Own Personal Constitution
Over the last three lessons you have read the following:
• an excerpt about governing values from Hyrum Smith’s book called The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management (in lesson 4)
• an excerpt about beginning with the end in mind from Steven Covey’s book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (in lesson 5)
• an excerpt about how goals need to be in line with our governing values to have inner peace from Hyrum Smith’s book The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management (in lesson 6)
• an excerpt about the power of goals in Steven Covey’s book called First Things First (in lesson 6)
Now, you will have the opportunity to put all of these principles to work. As you do this, refer often to the excerpts, because they have good examples, and will guide you through the assignment you are about to get.
Your Personal Constitution Writing Assignment
Write clearly your governing values in order of priority (as Smith outlines in the excerpt from lesson 4). Then, take each one of those values and set long-term and short-term goals regarding that value. Follow the “what/why/how” approach that Covey uses in his excerpt from First Things First (in lesson 6).
Refer back to the excerpts from Hyrum Smith’s book and Stephen Covey’s books for multiple examples of how to complete this assignment.


alexa73301 added on 06/21/12 at 05:28 PM (PST):

#6)



The Literature-Based Essay
Write a literature-based essay utilizing the Six Traits as a guide and assessment tool.
Identify a specific thesis you want to prove and then write a literature-based essay discussing and proving the thesis after you read the Literature-based Essay Writing Instructions. (You will submit this writing assignment in your portfolio.)
Literature-based Essay Video
Writing Assignment: The Literature-Based Essay
The majority of the writing that we have done thus far in the course has been more on the creative end of the writing spectrum. In this lesson you will have the opportunity to write a much more academic type of paper. Nevertheless, you are still going to apply the Six Traits, and hopefully you can even enjoy this assignment.
If you follow directions carefully, and do what is asked, you should do quite well.
Introduction To The Literature-Based Essay
The first step in writing a literature-based essay is to read and analyze literature. (You have definitely done that already in the course). After you have analyzed the literature, you then need to come up with a specific idea or focus that you want to talk about in your essay. (If you took the response journals seriously, then you have already done quite a bit of analysis of the literature. Your response journals are an excellent place to look for a topic for your literature-based essay.) Then, in your essay you explore that topic, and you use the literature as evidence to support your view.
Really, this is just a type of persuasive writing (as is most writing). The best analogy I’ve found to help explain any kind of persuasive writing is to compare writing to a court case. Look at the following comparisons, and hopefully the explanation that follows will help you understand your task when you are asked to do this type of writing.
• Judge/Jury—Reader (your audience)
• Lawyer pleading the case—You (writer)
• The Case on Trial—Your topic or thesis
• Evidence/witnesses—Your specific supporting arguments, details, examples, quotes from the literature
• Ruling/verdict—Your grade/Assessment
Now if you want to be a successful lawyer, the first thing you need to do is define exactly what you are defending or prosecuting. You need to know the case well, so that you can then determine what evidence you are going to use to help you in your case. Obviously, you want to stick specifically to your case. You don’t want to start bringing up evidence for other cases that are unrelated to the case you are working on. The next thing you do, after you know what case you will be arguing, is to decide what evidence is going to be most beneficial and persuasive to your audience—the judge and/or jury. Remember that everything you say or present in the courtroom should point toward persuading them to see your side of the case. Once you have all your evidence, then you need to decide how you are going to present it. What order, and in what ways will the evidence be most effective? Then comes the final part of actually going through the trial. When you are done with the arguments, and you have presented the court with the evidence and witnesses, then you will be done with your part. Last, the case goes to the judge or jury, and they assess your job and give you a verdict.
Persuasive writing is incredibly similar. The first thing you want to do as a writer is define exactly what the topic (case) is. After you know what your topic is, then you want to determine what passages/quotes/examples you will use to support the topic. And, remember to use only the literature examples that will further your topic. After you have the quotes/examples, etc. (evidence) you need to decide what order you will present it, and in what manner it will be presented. Finally, you actually write the paper. When you are done, you turn it in to be assessed.
Note: The one place where this analogy breaks down is that in writing you get to revise and change your arguments as much as you want before you turn it in. If the first draft is terrible, you get the opportunity to fix it, or even start over. In the courtroom, you get one chance to do it right. So, take advantage of the revision process.
Hopefully you have a little better idea of what your task is on this writing assignment. The following will help guide you through the process of writing the literature-based essay.
Choosing Your Topic (Case)
The first thing you want to do is choose your topic. I am giving you complete freedom in your topic for two reasons. First, if you choose something that interests you, then you will write a better paper than if I gave you a very specific question that does not interest you. The second reason that I am letting you choose your essay is that it makes you really think about the different pieces of literature in a way that you wouldn’t if I just assigned you a topic. The third reason is selfish—I don’t want to read the exact same response a thousand times every year.
The first suggestion I have in your selection of a topic is to review your response journals and some of the literature and decide what pieces of literature interested you, and then think about why they interested you.
Once you have done that, then you want to create a thesis statement that defines what your paper is going to be discussing. Below I will give good and bad examples of thesis statements. As you create your thesis statement, keep the following considerations in mind:
• Keep the topic narrow and focused. Avoid vague topics.
• Go beyond the obvious by exploring the topic just past the surface information.
Don’t create a vague, boring thesis like these three examples—
1. Some of the literature in this course teaches interesting lessons.
2. Victor Frankl was incredibly strong to survive the concentration camps.
3. Steven Covey’s and Hyrum Smith’s excerpts were very inspiring.
These three examples are lousy because they violate both of the considerations that I mentioned above. They are all vague, and none of them go beyond the obvious.
Look at the next three example thesis statements. They take the same lousy example above and turn them into topics that are focused and interesting. I expect you to come up with a topic at least this good.
1. Several characters in the literature show us with powerful realism the importance of education, and they show that education is much more than going to school.
2. It was Victor Frankl’s moral strength and view of life that allowed him to survive the concentration camps.
3. Steven Covey’s and Hyrum Smith’s excerpts are inspiring because they give real life applications that we understand and relate to.
Finding the Support for Your Paper (Evidence)
Once you have your topic, you will then want to come up with the evidence to support what you are claiming in your topic. For example, I will show you some of the examples and quotes that I would pick to support topic 1 above. Since I have decided to talk about education, I would first go back through any literature that I think might have characters that will help me prove my thesis. The ones that I think could work in this paper are:
• excerpt from Kaffir Boy
• excerpt from The Autobiography of Helen Keller
• excerpt from Black Boy
• the short story “The Bet”
Next I want to paraphrase what it is specifically about each of these that relates to education and how education goes beyond school.
1. Kaffir Boy shows how education opens up opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t be there, and it shows how education is sometimes the only way to escape from poverty or other undesirable circumstances.
2. Helen Keller shows the power that teachers have to open up new worlds, and she also shows that through education life has more meaning.
3. Richard Wright in Black Boy shows how important it is to understand how to relate what we learn to our own lives and situations.
4. The character in “The Bet” shows that even though you can learn everything there is to know, if it is not used then it is no better than not ever learning it in the first place.
Hopefully you can see that my paper is already beginning to take shape. Basically the four items above are the beginnings of paragraphs in the body of the paper. The thesis is the beginning of the introductory paragraph, so really all I am missing is a conclusion. Of course, we’ve still got a way to go before we’re done. The two things I want to accomplish before we move on are to find specific quotes from each piece that help support the thesis, and then I want to organize the different examples into an order that is logical and persuasive. I am only going to go step-by-step through one paragraph, but you’ll get the idea.
These are the quotes that I think I can use from Kaffir Boy:
• “They, like myself, had grown up in an environment where the value of an education was never emphasized; where the first thing a child learned was not how to read and write and spell but how to fight and steal and rebel.”
• The lady they saw in the street said of her son, “he shunned school and, instead, grew up to live by the knife. And the same knife he lived by ended his life. That’s why whenever I see a boy child refuse to go to school, I stop and tell the story of my dear little mbitsini.”
• He asked his mother, “Why do you want me to go to school, Mama?”
• She replied, “I want you to have a future, child . . . school is the only means to a future.”
• “Education will open doors where none seem to exist. It will make you soar, like a bird lifting up into the endless blue sky, and leave poverty, hunger, and suffering behind.”
Once you have the quotes you think support the thesis well, then you want to write them into your paragraph so that they flow smoothly into your paper. Be sure to embed the quotes, or give them context. It is very awkward if you don’t. The following is an example of how I would embed the above quotes into a paragraph.
In Kaffir Boy, Mark Mathabane gives us a glimpse of how important education is in an environment where his mother had to go to great lengths to even be allowed to have him go to school. Mathabane grew up in “an environment where the value of an education was never emphasized; where the first thing a child learned was not how to read and write and spell but how to fight and steal and rebel.” He always thought that going to school was a waste of time, but several experiences changed that. First, a lady in the street saw him trying to run away from having to go to school. She told him about her own son. She said, “He shunned school and, instead, grew up to live by the knife. And the same knife he lived by ended his life. That’s why whenever I see a boy child refuse to go to school, I stop and tell the story of my dear little mbitsini.” Later, after his father beat his mother for taking him to school, he asked his mother why she wanted him to go to school. She replied, “I want you to have a future, child . . . school is the only means to a future.” Through these experiences, Mark Mathabane realized that there really is more to education than just going to school. As his mother told him, “Education will open doors where none seem to exist.” He realized that an education was what would allow him to become that bird that lifts into the sky, leaving “poverty, hunger, and suffering behind.”
After you have finished developing all of your paragraphs like that, or before you develop them, it is crucial to put them in the order that you think will be the most persuasive. This is the order that I would put my different evidence.
1. Introduction with thesis
2. Helen Keller
3. Kaffir Boy
4. Richard Wright
5. “The Bet”
6. Conclusion
As you write your paper, put all of these different pieces of evidence together. Be sure to use smooth transitions that lead from one topic to the next and tie all evidence back to the thesis.
In addition to that, keep in mind that you want to make your introduction interesting so that it catches the attention of the reader. And, make your conclusion interesting. Try to leave the reader something that will make him continue to think about your topic. The following is my example. The transitions are bolded to help you see how easy it can be to tie all the different support together.
Ferris the Fraud
We live in a society that glorifies Ferris Beuhler. Granted, I remember pretending to have a sore throat so that I didn’t have to go to school. I was actually lucky, because it seemed that I had a condition on my tonsils that made it look like my throat was always sore. Therefore, when I got the urge to stay home I pulled out the flashlight and opened my mouth for my mom. It worked every time. I remember watching the movie Ferris Beuhler’s Day Off, in which Ferris is the hero for creating an elaborate scheme to avoid going to school. The teachers in the movie drone on, and are portrayed as barely more than tape recorders with low batteries, and all the students consequently hate school. It was funny, and unfortunately too many students in our culture want to be like Ferris, but in actuality, Ferris is a fraud. There are several characters in the literature that show us the power of education, and they show that education goes beyond school. Movies like Ferris Beuhler’s Day Off may be funny and entertaining, but they lie about what education is all about.
One person that definitely portrays the truth about the power of education is Helen Keller. Keller grew up deaf and blind and lived in a world that was dark both literally and intellectually. At the age of almost seven she was incredibly ignorant because she didn’t have the ability to learn with her handicaps. She says that her existence was like being in a “dense fog . . . it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in.” Then her teacher, Anne Sullivan came to her and gave her the light of learning. She taught her how to learn language, and Keller says it “awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free.” Education gave meaning to Keller’s life, and made it worth living.
Mark Mathabane was also denied education until about the same age as Keller, but for different reasons. In his book Kaffir Boy, he describes how hard it was to get an education as a black boy in the face of apartheid South Africa. Mathabane gives us a glimpse of how important education is in an environment where his mother had to go to great lengths to even be allowed to have him go to school. Mathabane grew up in “an environment where the value of an education was never emphasized; where the first thing a child learned was not how to read and write and spell but how to fight and steal and rebel.” He always thought that going to school was a waste of time, but several experiences changed that. First, a lady in the street saw him trying to run away from having to go to school. She told him about her own son. She said, “he shunned school and, instead, grew up to live by the knife. And the same knife he lived by ended his life. That’s why whenever I see a boy child refuse to go to school, I stop and tell the story of my dear little mbitsini.” Later, after his father beat his mother for taking him to school, he asked his mother why she wanted him to go so badly. She replied, “I want you to have a future, child . . . school is the only means to a future.” Through these experiences, Mark Mathabane realized that there really is more to education than just going to school. As his mother told him, “Education will open doors where none seem to exist.” He realized that an education was what would allow him to become that bird that lifts into the sky, leaving “poverty, hunger, and suffering behind.”
Like Mathabane, Richard Wright also had a difficult time getting a formal education because of his racial background. Nevertheless, Wright did all he could on his own to learn. He got library books on someone else’s card so that he could read H.L. Mencken. When he started reading the book, he realized Mencken “was fighting, fighting with words . . . He was using words as a weapon.” The most important lesson that Wright points out, though, is not that reading was fun, or learning was neat. The lesson he seems to be teaching in Black Boy is that when we apply what we learn, and take education beyond school, then the real power of education is manifest. He says, “Could words be weapons? Then, maybe, perhaps, I could use them as a weapon.” Way too often it seems students learn information for a test, and then as they leave the testing room, all the information leaks out both ears never to be touched again. Richard Wright does just the opposite. He takes what he learns from his reading and tries to apply it. It opens up new worlds to him.
Richard Wright is an excellent example of applying what you learn, and realizing that education goes beyond school. The last example “The Bet” shows in a negative way that there is much more to education than just learning. In this story, two men make a bet in which one agrees to spend the next fifteen years in solitary confinement. If he stays the full fifteen years, the other man must pay him two million dollars. While he was in solitary confinement, he “read the classics,” and many other books. He studied “languages, philosophy, and history.” In four years he read more than 600 volumes. Despite all the learning he did, he hated life and was extremely lonely. He was unable to apply anything that he had learned for the good of others. At the end of the fifteen years he said, “your books have given me wisdom.” Yet, he goes on to say, “I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world.” When put in a situation in which he could learn anything, but not be able to use it for anything, it seems that he became miserable and depressed. Therefore, it shows how important it is to apply what we know, and not just learn things for no other purpose.
From these, and many other examples, we realize how crucial education is to our existence. It opens opportunities, and makes our lives better, especially when we apply what we know. Our culture will still be full of kids with the attitude of Ferris Beuhler, and there will likely be other movies that portray and promulgate that attitude, but the truth is that education is powerful and important. I bet Ferris Beuhler would even have a change in attitude if he had the opportunity to meet Mark Mathabane or Richard Wright.
Hopefully this example is useful to you. Notice a couple of things in this example.
First, remember to always put direct quotes from the text in quotation marks. Also, if you use a quote longer than five lines the whole thing should be indented. I would discourage you from using gigantic quotes, unless the entire thing is absolutely necessary to your paper. Huge quotes in a paper like this can be distracting. Instead, you can paraphrase parts, and then quote the really important words.
Second, give your paper an interesting title. It serves as a “hook” to get your reader interested in what you have to say.
There are a thousand different topics for you to choose for this paper. Don’t think you have to copy my idea, or the idea that follows in the student example that I give you. Come up with something original that interests you.
One more thing—I haven’t given you a length for this paper. Make it complete. If you can do a great job in two pages double spaced, that is great. If you need four pages to make it complete, that is fine also.
Word of Warning: Don’t even dream about turning in a paper that you wrote last year about some other literature. You must use the literature from this course, and if you don’t, you will not pass lesson eight. You will be given an “E” or an “I” and you will be asked to redo the paper to pass the class.
The following essay is a good student example of what I expect you to do. The reason I chose this one was because it follows pretty well the criteria I describe above. It also happened to follow the theme of journeys that the course follows. This essay was actually written before this course was rewritten, so it refers to other literature that you didn’t read for the course, so don’t get confused by that.
“The Moral Journey”
Life is full of journeys, from physical travels around the globe, to mental excursions in the world of literature, and beyond. But the most important journey through life is life itself. Through the literature in this course I have come to see that all the journeys through life are related to the moral journey of life. All the reading I have done has shown me that virtue is the best way to live. Whether it gives pain or not, the end will be for the best.
The story of The Persian Letters by Montesquieu is a wonderful example of life with, and without, virtue. This story gives excellent examples of what simply being virtuous can do to people. The story begins with a tribe, the Troglodytes, who based their lives on themselves, total and complete selfishness. They had no government, and the few times that one was there, the people simply got tired of it and killed the ruling people. They would do nothing for anyone else. They would not share, or help the needy. Even if the hungry die of starvation, it is none of their concern. The Troglodytes were even unwilling to pay a doctor who came from a distant foreign country to save their lives from a dreadful illness. Then, after the doctor had left, the illness sprang up once again, and they came pleading to him for help. The doctor would not help them, due mostly to the fact that they had treated him so poorly before.
You have seen, my dear Mirza, how the Troglodytes perished by their wickedness and became victims of their own injustice. Only two families in the entire nation escaped its ruin. For there were in this country two remarkable men, who were humane, just, and lovers of virtue.
By McDougall Littell’s definition, “Virtue is general moral excellence, right action and thinking.” These families lived virtuously and raised their kids the same way. They created a whole new race essentially. This new race created its own community, but they had no government, because they had no need. Their ruling body, so to speak, consisted of their virtues. The new community built itself up and was a nearly perfect community, as opposed to the early Troglodytes who created their own destruction. These two examples are extremely different, due to one little thing, virtue. It just goes to show you how much one thing can matter on life’s journey.
Another sample of literature is “The Tale of the Anklet” from One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, a Cinderella story. This simple, but well known, story is about how devastating jealousy can be, if left unchecked. The main character, Delilah, has two older stepsisters who are jealous of her natural outer, and inner, beauty, but mostly the outer beauty. One day Delilah bought a “magic” vase from an old merchant. The vase turned out to be truly magical. One day Delilah decided to dress up, with the vase’s help, and visit the castle. She wandered through the castle and chanced to see the prince. Delilah fell in love with him at first sight. But before she could meet him, Delilah saw her sisters heading for home, so she took off to get there first. When she was running away, she dropped her anklet in a watery ditch. The anklet was later found in the ditch. The Prince saw it, as well as the king. Then the Prince vowed to marry the girl who could fit the little anklet over her foot. They searched the kingdom for her. The Prince found Delilah eventually, and she started preparations to marry the Prince. Delilah gave the vase to her sisters so that they, too, could enjoy its magic, but the sisters, in their jealousy, used the vase to create three hairpins to turn Delilah into a dove. Delilah went and visited the Prince in that form everyday. Eventually he found the hairpins in the dove’s head. He removed them and Delilah returned to herself. She then proceeded to relate how she became a dove. When the sisters found out Delilah was back, they hid in the magic vase. Delilah left them there to whatever fate might befall them.
“Shall I order the vase to give up your sisters so that they can be beaten soundly and turned into jackdaws?” asked the Prince. “No,” said Delilah. “Place the vase on the highest shelf in the palace, and if someone should discover its secret in the years to come, that person can decide what to do with two big-footed girls and enough envy to fill a barn.”
The extreme jealousy of the stepsisters ended up leading to their entrapment, and thus the end of their reign of terror over Delilah. If they had but treated Delilah with the respect that she deserved as their sister, she would never have bought the vase, which brought about the destruction of the stepsisters. Alas, their jealousy prevented that from happening. So you see, jealousy can be nearly as bad as an overall lack of virtue on the journey of life.
The next selection of literature was “How Much Land Does a Man Need” by Leo Tolstoy, a story of what greed can to do a simple farmer in the country. The story starts with two sisters having a chat over tea. The elder sister is boasting about how good life in the city is. The younger sister is satisfied with country living. Her family can provide itself with everything it needs to survive. The younger sister’s husband is listening to this conversation. He becomes boastful to himself about how good their lives are, but they could use some more land. The whole while, the devil is there, listening. He sets his sights on bringing the husband under his power, by giving him more land. As the story progresses, they acquire more and more land. Eventually the man’s greed costs him not only the love and respect he received from his neighbors and associates, but his life, prematurely ending his journey.
The section of Blood Brothers, by Elias Chacour, required for this segment on moral journeys had an excellent lesson about happiness in life, whether now or later, whether momentary or eternal. Elias is in school at this time, but it is about to end. He has to decide whether or not to go back home and be with his family and he