Posted: August 13th, 2015

Although not due at this point in time, I know students

final essay Final Essay Assignment

Final essay

Although not due at this point in time, I know students are always concerned when a final essay is assigned. Please read the following carefully, and keep the requirements in mind as you do your readings and discussions in the final weeks of this course.

“The Good” in life, as defined first by the ancient Greeks, is the final or ultimate end at which our actions aim. It’s the answer to the question of why you do what you do. For Epicurus, as we’ve seen, it was pleasure, though his explanation is much more complicated than might first come to mind. One is successful when this end is accomplished (adding perhaps the qualification “to the highest degree possible” or “to a reasonable degree”).

Another description is one’s “philosophy of life.” Typically, when someone asks the question: “What’s your philosophy of life?”, I suspect the questioner himself doesn’t quite understand what he is asking. The question might mean: “What sense do you make of the way the world is, or what’s the purpose of it all?”; or “How do you deal with the tribulations of life?”; or “Why have you chosen to live in the way you do?” The last interpretation is another way of asking, “What’s the Good in life?”

As written in the introduction to this Unit, unless one knows where one is aiming, (and perhaps why as well) it’s very unlikely one will happen to hit the mark.

Your assignment: what will be “the Good” in your life? What is the end or goal, for the sake of which you act as you do? Once you have a preliminary answer, ask yourself what problems might there be with your answer. For example, suppose you choose “wealth” as your goal. I imagine few people truly hold wealth as the final goal. Instead, they want certain goods that wealth usually brings: security, prestige, comfort, and so forth.

Your essay should be a minimum of 8 pages of content (do NOT count the title page or reference pages) using APA format. No abstract is required. You must include appropriate references to EACH of the required texts (de Botton, Affluenza and Kafka) for this course, and may also include references from other relevant readings–Dunne’s essay for example. (You may or may not include the film. It’s your choice.) This is where your dialectical journal will come in handy. The more work you do in the journal–the more the paper will “write itself.” Trust the process. Essays that do not meet the minimum length or that do NOT demonstrate an understanding of all the course readings will not earn full credit. See the detailed “Final Essay Rubric” in Doc Sharing. If a synthesis of this type is new to you, check out the graphic organizer (synthesis chart) in this unit. There is also a “synthesis presentation” in Week 7 for you to look at. Simply locate key words or themes from each dialectical journal for your readings, and see how they can connect to each other and to your own ideas. In other words, put the authors of our readings into a dialogue with each other! Then, freewrite on the connections without concern for grammar, punctuation or spelling. Just let your imagination work unhindered by criticism. This first “free” writing becomes the basis for your first draft.

Once you have a draft, let it sit for a day or two. Have someone else read it. Read it aloud. This is by far the best way to proofread your own work. Then, make revisions which will enhance clarity and meaning. Once you have the ideas in shape, then worry about grammar, punctuation, spelling and APA format. (Don’t polish the doorknobs before you have the house built.)

This short summation might help you to think about your final paper.

Some students find it helpful to organize the essay according to our themes, but this is not required. Remember, you will be writing to a general audience who has no idea about the course materials, so you will need to do some paraphrasing and summarizing. However, this is not a book report. I expect you to go beyond mere regurgitation. Integration of sources, evaluation and synthesis are required. You have been doing this every week in the discussion, so this is nothing new.

In this course, we have read three main texts: Affluenza, The Consolations of Philosophy, and The Metamorphosis. Each of these texts has, in its own way, dealt with the human condition and moral crisis. Now in Affluenza, we came across the wide problems linked with material culture along with valid questions about how we view success and the “good life.” In Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, written more than a hundred years ago, we have seen a modernistic representation of the idea of being transformed by mundane realities of human struggle. The Consolations of Philosophyhas introduced us to different viewpoints on how we can think about ourselves and our lives. In your final assignment, I want you to synthesize the various lessons that each of these texts have enabled us to learn. Basically, you will be showing how these texts can be seen in conversation with each other.

Ask yourself these questions:

What ideas I can take from these books? What connections can I make to the author’s beliefs? With which ideas do I agree? Which ideas do I reject and why? In what ways have these books contributed to my philosophy of life? What will “the good” in my life be?

Your paper should demonstrate your sincere involvement with these texts, and not simply be an assignment for a grade. Answering these questions should help you synthesize and evaluate the various ideas to which you have been introduced in this course.