Prompt: Re-read and reflect upon Henry David Thoreau’s “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” and write an essay that applies three concepts from this essay to your own life. This will be a personal narrative (minimum five paragraphs per instructions given below) in the sense that you will use your own experiences as evidence to support the claim of your essay; however, the assignment also requires analysis of the text and the application of concepts within it for support.
Suggested structure for the essay (following the classical model):
Opening paragraph (about 100-150 words): Hook to catch the reader’s attention, discussion of why your approach is important, and three-part thesis statement.
Three body paragraphs (each about 250 words minimum): Each topic sentence corresponding to one part of the thesis statement along with discussion to prove your claim and supported by textual evidence as well as sound reasoning, concluding with a sentence that ties the paragraph together.
Concluding paragraph (about 100-150 words): Re-statement of your thesis, answer the the question, “So what?” (that is, now that you have proven your case, why should we as readers care?), and recommendations to the reader (what might the reader do with what you have proven?).
Give a title to your essay that connects clearly with your thesis statement.
Whenever you quote from the story, be sure to provide the page number in parentheses after the quote (use double quotes [“–“] throughout). Proofread carefully. Listen to your sentences: remember that we write with our ear (reading aloud what you have written in draft helps with this).
When completed, please submit as a copied and pasted text (no attachments please) to me at [email protected]. Include the CRN for our class.
Rubric: clear structure, accurate language, logic, sufficient support (both your own reasoning and quotes from the text) to prove your claims, spelling, grammar, punctuation, focus (staying on topic). You may write in first-person plural (we/our) or singular (I/my). Watch for tense consistency. Avoid using the indefinite “you.” Listen to your sentences for clarity and accuracy. Watch pronoun-antecedent agreement (i.e. “their” is a plural pronoun, not singular).