English 1101
Writing Assignments
Spring 2010
Section 20
January 12. Write the story of some experience that you learned something from. Just the story--you'll explain later. A page or less.
Save the story on the computer you are working on, and email a copy as an attachment to me at thomas.harrison@maconstate.edu. Send it by MSC email, gmail, hotmail, or any other. If all else fails, send it as an attachment in Vista email.
Paper 1. Due January 19. Incorporate the story you have written of something that happened to you into a longer paper like this: Tell the story again, briefly, in a paragraph or two, of something that happened to you that helped you understand what the world is like. Do not explain why you are telling the story or write about your reasoning. Just plunge in: "While I was driving south on Hawkinsville Road last Tuesday . . ." Write a paragraph or two.
Then, in the next paragraph, explain why you are telling the story and what you learned from the experience(s) you are writing about, and show how what you learned relates to one of the Meanings of Life in Chapter Two of The Big Questions. Quote a sentence or so from the book and give a page reference like this one: "If life is a game, it is not to be taken so seriously . . ." (Solomon 58). The parenthetical citation includes the author's last name and page number only--no punctuation.
Finally, think of any other events in your life, before or after the one you wrote about, that seemed to teach the same lesson, and describe them briefly before you write the conclusion. Revise the paper so that it makes a coherent whole. 500 words.
Paper 2. Due 2/4. Choose a quotation that is meaningful to you from one of the gray boxes in Chapter Three, "God," or Chapter Four, "The Nature of Reality." Write the quotation down under the title of your paper, like this:
The Spirit of Life
The goal, which is absolute Knowledge of Spirit knowing itself as Spirit, finds its pathway in the reflection of spiritual forms as they are in themselves and as they accomplish the organization of the spiritual kingdom.
--Hegel, Phenomenology of the Spirit (Quoted Solomon and Higgins 78)
Indent the whole quotation (no quotation marks--go to Format, Paragraph and Indentation Left to indent highlighted text; find Paragraph in Word 2007) and give the author's name and the page from which the quotation comes. Also, if Solomon and Higgins (the authors of The Big Questions) arequoting someone else, say "Quoted" in your parenthetical citation.
You have two jobs in this paper: 1) relate the quotation to the discussion outside the gray boxes, and 2) relate the quotation to your own experiences or ideas--explain why you chose the quotation you did. Look up any philosophical or theological terms you use in your glossary.
Make this a regular essay with a beginning, middle, and end. Double space your paper. Put your name, the course number, and the date in the upper left. 500 words.
Paper 3. Due 3/3. Read the gray box on page 188, "What Is It Like, to Be a Bat?" Survey the web for sites on bats and bat senses and/or on other animals and animal senses. Google "bat senses," "fish senses," and others. Think about what it would be like to be a bat or some other non-human animal--not necessarily a bat, but not a pet like a cat or dog. What would it be like to be a snake, a frog, an eagle, a vulture? Clearly, you are going to be concerned with epistemology, right? What do bats or snakes know, and how do they know it? You are also concerned with self. What kind of experience do turtles have? What kind of self would turtles have? Quote or cite something from Chapter Five (on Epistemology) AND something from Chapter Six (on Self).