Eng. 10 Final Essay Fall Semester 2009

Directions: Plan and write an essay in response to one of the following prompts.  Your response should have a clear argument that you will support using examples from your outside reading, both Catcher in the Rye and Fahrenheit 451, your outside reading books, as well as any other relevant studies, observations, or experiences. 

Prompt #1:

Existentialist Jean Paul Sarte believed in personal freedom, holding that man is free to “write the script” for his own life: he can blame no one else if his life is a “poor performance.” On the other hand, William Blake and others in the Romantic movement felt that the expectations and restraints of society severely limit a person: they believed that schooling, organized religion, and other social institutions imprison a person’s mind and spirit.

Assignment:  What is your opinion of the claim that there is no such thing as free choice; to some degree, we are always bound by the rules of society?

Prompt #2

Many American hold that individuals should be free to decide what they read, watch, and listen to, unrestrained by censorship laws.  In a decision on the First Amendment guarantee of the right to posses “obscene” books, US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall said that “Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.” Yet others believe that citizens, especially minors, should be protected by law from unsuitable subject matter.  According to Susan Baker of the Parent’s Music Resource Center, “It is simply the act of a responsible society that recognizes that some material made for adults is not appropriate for children.”

Assignment:  What is your opinion of the claim that sometimes censorship is justified?  Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue

Prompt #3

Rules keep a society running smoothly.  Yet a familiar adage states, “Rules were made to be broken.”  Some, like the late Martin Luther King Jr., have applied this adage to laws.  “An individual that breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust…is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

Assignment: What is your opinion that breaking the rules is sometimes necessary?  Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue.