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Reading and Experience Essay

 

          After thoughtfully and actively reading a text and using the skills of underlining, noting, paraphrasing, and summarizing, you are ready to respond by bringing your own world of experiences, concepts, and values into reaction with the author’s world. A selection may remind you of your own experiences, so you may develop the comparison with a “reading and experience” essay. The selection may raise questions that you want to respond to with thoughtful reflection, or it may provoke you to write an essay or story on a similar subject.

 

          The readings below are intended to persuade readers to the authors’ points of view. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., skillfully moves from one type of appeal to another (logos, pathos, ethos), rationally arguing the moral rectitude of his work, moving his audience to empathy for children and others who suffer in racially segregated communities, and establishing his credibility as a spokesman for justice, a man called by God to urge righteousness upon our nation. The famous African-American poet Langston Hughes portrays in his autobiographical sketch “Salvation” how people see the events of their lives through the lens of their own backgrounds and assumptions—assumptions they may be quite unconscious of. In this narrative, you need to distinguish the author’s persuasive purpose in writing his story and the purpose and techniques used by different characters within the story. Garrison Keillor, known for his humorous narratives from the mythical town of Lake Wobegon, presents in “Letter from Jim” a serious reflection on the effect of one’s actions. This letter is not told with obvious appeals to heighten the rhetoric of the other persuasions illustrated in these selections, but it does persuade us to evaluate the consequences of our moral choices.

 

Assignment

Reading and Experience Essay

 

          In an essay of three or more pages, write about how an idea or event in one of the readings so far parallels an event or realization in your own life, past or present. Possible situations include but are not limited to these: a time when you made an atypical choice (Frost, “The Road Not Taken”), a time when you realized how you treated others (O’Connor, “Revelation”), a time when you experienced a major change in your life (Malcom X, “Freedom through Learning to Read”), a time when the church made you confused and sad (Hughes, “Salvation”), and so on. Actually, anything could work, as long as the text truly connects to your experience.

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Directions

  1. No trivial topics, please.

  2. You must reveal the outcome, good or bad. 

  3. You need not reveal anything you don’t want to.

  4. You may use “I,” but don't overuse it.

  5. You must have a clear, appropriate thesis statement positioned at the end of the introductory paragraph.

  6. Your audience for such an essay is likely to be your peers, so you may write in a somewhat less formal style.

  7. Please be as descriptive as possible. You are narrating, so be a good storyteller. For example, instead of writing, “I was very angry,” write “This insult made me boil.” Also, include as many sensory details as possible: what did it look/sound/taste/feel like? Avoid weak, abstract words such as “beautiful,” “awesome,” “amazing,” and the like. Part of your grade comes from your use of concrete, lively details.

  8. You MUST make at least two references to the text, quoted directly, with accompanying parenthetical citations.

  9. You MUST include a work cited page with an entry for your selected text. See LBCH 10th ed. 57.2, pp. 463-496.

 

Sample thesis statement

At that time in my life, much like the young Langston Hughes in “Salvation,” I felt confused and dismayed because of a negative experience at church.”

 

Structure

This is, at minimum, a basic five-paragraph essay.

  1. Introduction with thesis

  2. A paragraph that summarizes the reading to give the reader context for the remainder of the essay. If this paragraph is not included, then the context needs to be provided in the introduction.

  3. Three or more body paragraphs describing your experience, including the minimum three quotations, cited parenthetically.

  4. A concluding paragraph that sums up the experience and draws the essay to a satisfying close

  5. A work cited page

 

Suggested selections for Writing a Reading and Experience Essay

Click on database titled “Academic Search Complete.”

Select 2 fields; one is “author” (type in Alice Walker) & the second is “title” (type in the welcome table).

Click on “search” and then “HTML full text.”

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