Monday, June 3, 2013

Composition 2: personal philosophy essay

As I am nearly finished with Composition 1, the next course has already started. This week I have to submit my first assignment. I was thirst thinking of posting here the description of the challenge. The description was retrieved from the coursera.com homepage.

Compose a 400-500 word personal philosophy essay in which you lead your audience to recognize and understand why a specific belief is important to you. Before you begin, review the modules and slides from week two. Imagine that you are writing to another person enrolled in this course, someone who doesn’t realize that you hold this particular belief or that you hold it so strongly.
This essay is not fiction; instead, it is a way to share your belief about one aspect of your life. For example, you might write about one of the roles you play in your life, an important value you hold, a significant relationship you’ve had, a position you take on an issue, a personal goal, and so on.

Guidelines:
Begin the essay with a question, a challenge, a startling fact, a dramatic incident, or a significant quotation (or some equally compelling strategy for beginning a personal philosophy essay). Do not start with a dictionary definition. Use “I,” since this is a first-person essay.

In the body of the essay, in order to support your argument—the reason you hold your specific belief—share a focused anecdote that illustrates why you hold your belief. The specific and concrete details you present in the anecdote are the evidence for your argument.
In your anecdote, consider the three elements of the rhetorical triangle and the ways they might function in your essay.

Conclude by returning to the way you captured the audience’s attention at the beginning of the essay; for example, explain how you have answered the question, challenge, or startling fact with which you began.

Once you have completed your essay, create a title for the essay that synthesizes your belief and that captures your readers’ attention and interest.

Your essay will be evaluated by how well it (a) begins with a way to capture readers’ attention and interest in the title and the opening, (b) focuses on a specific personal belief, (c) presents an anecdote using specific and concrete details to illustrate your belief, (d) concludes by returning to the way you began, and (e) conforms to conventional language in grammar and mechanics.  

I am not sure yet about my exact topic for this assignment but I am certain that I will figure it out soon... 400 - 500 hundred words feels almost like a piece of cake. It can be of course that it turns out to be very hard and challenging to write something with so few words.  
  

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