Essay Requirements

Directly respond to the assignment.
With this essay, your challenge is to write an around 1250-1550 word thesis-controlled response essay where you will explain how the belief of the individual who wrote the essay relates to your own belief and you will explain how your belief is guiding and shaping your life.
Target Audience: our class
Note that your purpose is not to advise others, but to instead explain your view, i.e., your belief. (Your essay will be 75% – 80% about you and 25%- 20% about the This I Believe writer.)
Organize your thoughts into an essay with an introduction, body (comprised of 4 or more paragraphs), and conclusion.
Use first person (I, my, we, our) to share your views and experiences.
Avoid second person (using the pronoun you).
Compose around 1250-1550 words.
Incorporate at least 3 direct quotations from the essay.
Demonstrate how to introduce and quote a passage using double quotation marks.
Demonstrate how to integrate a quoted word, words, or phrase into your sentence.
Demonstrate how to set off (i.e., block) a passage.
Demonstrate how to use brackets.
Demonstrate how to use ellipsis points.
Composing Instructions

Review your annotations and read through your responses within your prewriting form.

Download and save the ? WP#2: Response Template. Recommended file name: lastname_WP2Draft

Open and review your plan:
Go to Assessments and scroll down to Assignments. Then, click on on the 1 in the Submissions column.
Next, do one of the following:
Copy and paste your plan into your saved template.
Open your plan on another screen (or another window on your split screen) so that it is easy to access.
Print a copy of your plan.
Update your work-cited page: Delete the entries for the essays that you are not writing about.

Next, begin composing your introduction beneath the title.
Your introduction should begin with lines that will hook your readers. I recommend starting with sentences about you.
Then introduce the essay: include the writer’s name, the title of the essay, and the name of the web site.
Italicize the name of the web site.
Enclose the title of the essay in quotation marks.
Summarize what the essay is about.
In your summary include what the writer believes and how the belief formed and is shaping his/her life.
Thesis: End your introduction by summarizing how the writer’s belief relates to your own belief and how that belief is guiding and shaping your life.
Now, draft the body section (the evidence paragraphs) of your essay. Within the body, explain your thesis.
Tackle one sub-point at a time: one per paragraph.
State your view and or point.
Relate your view or point to the This I Believe essay and to your own experiences. As you discuss the point, share specific examples and stories.
Draft your conclusion. Within your conclusion, I recommend
Recapping about why you chose to write about this essay
Reflecting about how its message is impacting your present and future
OR
Writing about the importance of reading and hearing the beliefs and life stories of others to you
OR
Writing about the importance of reflecting about what you believe and why you believe it