The extent of family influences to one’s ability to be successful.
In this essay, we are taking the leap into using the concepts from one text to analyze the ideas in another text. We will continue to work on carefully reading and understanding the texts, but this time, we’ll be choosing solid, specific examples to illustrate the connections we make from text to text and explaining these analytical connections to our readers.
Main Goals of Essay
⇒ Focus your essay on a solid thesis statement that makes a claim and states the reasons for that claim (your “because” statement).
⇒ Provide effective and developed support (reasons and examples) for your claim with ideas from the texts.
⇒ Critically analyze the degree to which you believe family plays a role in one’s success, using theories about family discussed in the readings.
⇒ Create organized paragraphs that focus on one main point and divide your argument into manageable chunks for your readers
Essay 1 Prompt
For this assignment, you will argue the extent to which you believe family influences one’s ability to be successful. Using the articles about the family influence on, and internal drivers for, success, and using Wes Moore’s story of his family and father from “The Other Wes Moore” as a case study, argue how much you think Moore’s family helped influence his success, in what ways Moore exhibits the internal qualities that help someone to become successful, and if there is a connection between his family’s influence and his abilities.
Analyze how Moore’s family structure, and individual relationships with his family, may have helped him succeed, the internal personality traits he demonstrates that may have helped him succeed, and the relationship between family structure and one’s ability to develop the personality traits/mindset needed for success.
Your essay should:
Include a strong thesis claim and reasons in support of this claim.
While Wes Moore is part of this essay, he is not the whole essay. Make sure to focus on the other readings, too. You should also connect his story to the other readings. Remember to limit yourself to chapter 1, too.
Include details, examples, and quotations from the texts to help you develop your argument.
Talk about complexities—for example, you might think about Moore’s grittiness, but then also explain how his family helped her to become gritty. Make sure you use specific examples to help you support your ideas.
Use your critical voice to explain WHY you’ve reached your conclusions about the relationship between family and success.
Write your essay for people who are NOT in this class and are not familiar with the readings. This means you need to summarize key ideas, define any terms that might be unfamiliar, and choose short quotations from the readings to help your reader get a sense of what the authors are talking about. This includes: Any ideas you apply from the articles, such as family narrative, “intergenerational self”, “gene-environment interactions”, “orchid” hypothesis, etc. (Please note: these are only examples. There are many more ideas to choose from). Any ideas you apply from Moore’s chapter about his father as evidence.
Make sure to use ALL of the readings from this unit, which are listed above. Failure to do so will result in a lower grade.
