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1.6 Personal Response Essay Plan

The essay you are about to write is a Personal Response essay.  This type of essay is less formal than some of the other essays you will write, such as a critical essay.
 

• You may talk about events in your own life.
• You can be conversational in your writing style.

The key word is personal.  Find a way to let your personality shine through in the words you choose and in the information you provide.   

Earlier in this unit, you considered how the texts studied reflected the essential questions in this course:

• What does it mean to live well in work, home, and play?
• What roles do success and failure play in the pursuit of living well?
• How does integrity, or a lack of integrity, affect one’s ability to live well?
• What are the benefits to ourselves, or to those around us, in using our skills and talents?
• In what way can a person change the course of his or her life through a single action?

Now, you are going to examine how the idea of living well applies to your own life.  You will delve into this topic throughout the course, gradually revising your definition of what it means to live well as you encounter new texts and ideas. 

For this assignment, you will write a Personal Response Essay answering ONE of the five essential questions.  In this essay you will use examples from either your own life or the lives of others to support your thesis. Follow each of the steps on the following pages, in order, to complete your assignment.