PERSONAL NARRATIVE ESSAY:
**please follow directions carefully**
This is a personal essay, you may use first person vocabulary.
Citations in paragraphs are not necessary unless a direct quote is used but still list them on a cite page please!
A Course of Intellectual Self-Defense
PROMPT:
The Personal Narrative Essay focuses on your ability to find points of interest, fascination, and provocation which leads you, the student, to further your “Course of Intellectual Self-Defense,” by developing a reading life. It also is an exploration of your own “Cave” as analyzed via the work of Plato and Socrates. What is your pathway forward? What will you subscribe to in the literary world?
You should review the concepts discussed in the three sections of the course to devise your own personal focus for this essay.
Provocation: Intellectual Self-Defense, The Seed to Read, and the Socratic Method out of the Cave.
Examination: The Intellectual, Creative, Researched Mind, and the … Media; Noam Chomsky.
Application: The Brain on Books and Free Thinking into the Personal Narrative.
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Requirements:
You must use content from the class analysis of:
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Allegory of the Cave by Plato
And you must choose one intellectual/writer/noted cultural figure from The Whore of Mensa by Woody Allen.
You may also apply the concepts from the “Examination” section of the course, principally the impact of propaganda and how to defend intellectually.
Questions I will be asking when I read your essay:
What specific elements from Fahrenheit 451 and The Allegory of the Cave influence you, in the context of the world today, and in your own personal journey?
What key quotes or scenes from the novel Fahrenheit 451 speak to you directly and why?
What symbols, metaphors, and allegorical meanings to your collective readings influenced your own thinking this semester?
How will developing a life of reading enrich your life as a whole? And what genres will appear on your bookshelf?
What intellectual figure in The Whore of Mensa intrigues you? Explain their work and why it could be influential to your life.
What influenced you specifically from reading and discussing Spalding Gray’s Catastrophe?
I have attached a picture of the prompt/rubric with a few more notes on what to make sure the essay contains.
“what is your cave?” – come up with a problem or obstacle in life and explain how it was overcome, make it sound personal.
**Choose an author listed in “The norman invasion” or “the whore of mensa” to write about in the essay**
Who is the key character in Fahrenheit 451 and what is their significance?
