Exam 1: How Should I Live?
Prompt: How should I live? How do historical circumstances condition and constrain the ways in which people might address this question? Answer with reference to Frantz Fanon and at least one of the other course readings. Make sure to place the readings into dialogue with one another.
The book we are writing this essay on is “Black Skin, White Masks” by Frantz Fanon.
For my other course reading I wanted to reference was “What’s it all About? Philosophy and the Meaning of Life” by Julian Baggini.
My Professor is looking for the following things:
1. Paragraph—Make sure every paragraph has a specific topic and that every topic has a specific paragraph.
2. Cite the texts. Ground your discussion in an analysis of the texts and do not stray too far from them. Make sure you include specific citations of the text, and make sure you cite the texts properly.
3. Define terms—Make sure you are clear about the meaning of the key terms in each question.
4. Focus on the question—Formulate a specific thesis that responds to the question. Make sure this thesis directly answers the question, and make sure that your thesis appears in your first paragraph. Everything you write should support your thesis and address the question.
5. Compare authors. You should do more than express clearly the arguments of the authors you discuss. You should also compare the authors’ arguments as well.
6. Evaluate arguments—Rather than simply repeat the arguments we have studied, evaluate them. This does not mean that you need be critical of the authors.
You could draw a connection or a distinction, or situate the argument in a way that goes beyond the basics of what I’ve said in class. One way to do this is to think about objections and/or alternatives to the theories we’ve read, as well as to your own interpretation of them. You might also look for assumptions implicit in the theories we’ve studied.
You might look for gaps in reasoning. You might think about the background against which they are writing or about their underlying purpose or motivation. Finally, you might think about how their arguments relate to each other or to arguments that you hear in contemporary life.
