Write an essay exploring the deep, meaningful, purposeful life that you would like to live. Incorporate concepts from Cal Newport’s Deep Work in your discussion.
Details and Minimum Requirements
This essay needs to be a minimum of four pages long, typed and double-spaced. There is no maximum length, but I would encourage you to limit yourself to no more than six pages. Anything more than that might be a sign that you’re struggling to focus your discussion effectively.
This essay is narrative in strategy. In other words, even though you’re drawing on ideas developed by another writer (Cal Newport), you’re primarily writing about yourself, your experiences, and the life you want to live.
Use Newport’s ideas to help you develop your ideas, but do not bother with source documentation or citation (e.g., “MLA”) for this assignment. Focus, instead, on developing your ideas fully and on expressing yourself clearly and straightforwardly.
I want you to pay very careful attention to the way you’re writing about Newport’s ideas. Make sure that what you write captures his concepts accurately. Inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and falsehoods are really, really, really bad. No matter what, say true things!
The version of this essay that you submit before midnight on 9/16 will be graded, but it will be worth only 10 points in this category. Once you have received feedback from me regarding strengths and areas for improvement, you may begin working at your own pace to revise / improve the essay. The final final final draft of this essay will be included in your end-of-semester portfolio, which will be worth 100 points in this category.
The Rhetorical Situation for this Essay
For each major writing assignment this semester, I’m going to ask you to imagine that you write a monthly column for The Valley Forge, RVC’s online student newspaper. The editors of the The Valley Forge give you a lot of space on their website to write about issues related to student success in college, and each of the essays that you publish on the site deal, in some way, with that basic theme.
For Paper 1, you should imagine that your essay will be read by other students (and RVC faculty and staff), folks who are genuinely curious about what you have to say about the supremely important issue of how to live your best life. They are not reading your essay with hostile intentions. They are not looking to “take points away” or crush your soul. They are not reading your work like it’s written by some inferior person. Just the opposite: They want to read your essay and be enlightened. They want your essay to make them think. What you write about your life should spur them to think about theirs.
As such, at some point along the way you should stop asking yourself, “Am I doing this right?” and, instead, ask yourself the following two questions: “Do I know what I’m talking about?” and “Do I truly believe what I’m writing?”
In other words, approach this assignment as if you have something important, valuable, and meaningful to say, and trust your audience to read what you’ve written with a generous, curious mind.
However … As with any writing situation in which there are stakes attached, how you express yourself matters. I want you to aim for clear, straightforward, accurate sentences and paragraphs. I want you to do everything in your power to ensure that each sentence and each paragraph clearly communicates your intended meaning. This means that, before “publishing” your work by submitting it, you should edit it and proofread it to guarantee its quality.
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