English comparison paper

Specific Directions for the Paper 4 (required in the portfolio)
The final paper is a sort of wrap up of everything you’ve learned in the course regarding the 4 core abilities:
1. Interprets and evaluates complex texts
2. Demonstrates a process of critical inquiry
3. Writes essays that articulate convincing arguments supported by authoritative evidence
4. Clearly expresses ideas in writing through the effective use of standard English and documentation
To demonstrate what you’ve learned this semester consider questions regarding the good life. Much of our ability to understand the good life has to do with how we interpret ideas like freedom, liberty, virtue, wisdom, and knowledge. The good life may be interpreted–and lived–in any number of ways, but people typically don’t interpret the good life as a negative phenomenon. For example, how many of your friends or peers claim that they want to live their lives as theives? What are Putnam and Wollstonecraft really writing about: probably some definition of what it means to live well. For Wollstonecraft one key to living well or living better is through a more expansive education; for Haynes, more expansive liberty is key to the good life. Often, people will refer to the good life as mastering the art of living.
In a paper 1,200 words in length (about 5 pages), answer this question: what is the good life in the modern, contemporary world? Or: How can one achieve the good life in the contemporary world?
Use at minimum 3 of our authors to support your view. Consider some approaches:
The good life may be something a person pursues but never attains because it is percieved as an ideal. The good life may be something a person plans on achieving through hard work and sacrifice and committment to other values, like family, community, military service, choice of career, justice, activism, religious practice, distraction avoidance, education, travel, the pursuit of wealth, and many more or some combination. You can also approach this question using what we call argument by negation: i.e., by making a case for what the good life “is not.” So, make your case for the good life in our times. Use at minimum 3 course authors in substantive fashion to make your case, documenting properly as you go. Try to be very specific (and real) about what you think consitutes elements of the good life from your perspective but without using the first person “I”.
Make sure you work hard at applying the Persuasive Framework in this paper, using your sources to develop specific arguments in support of your position. It is very important that students quote and quote or paraphrase often when summarizing, supporting or illustrating using cited texts.
Students may draw from Haynes, Jefferson, Wollstonecraft, Plato, King, Putnam.
Papers submitted without correct Works Cited pages cannot be evaluated and thus cannot be passed.
For every paper, you should write to an audience who has not read the foundational texts but who may be interested in the ideas they engage. It’s an educated audience, an audience who can manage the ideas.
Final Paper length: 1,200 words. This length does not include the works cited page.
Other papers’ lengths: as written in other assignments
Works Cited for all: yes
Format: MLA

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