Take-Home Essay Topics

Take-Home Essay #1

Learning/ Interest Essay

For our first take-home essay, we will write a first draft of three or four handwritten pages (or two and a half to three pages typed) on the topic of an area of life/ activity which involves our interest.

It may be an area that involves tension, contrasts, challenges, or interesting details-tasks-or-responsibilities.  And/or it may be an area that involves our close observation along with patterns or routines.  It may also be an area that includes a goal or the story of our own growing or changing in some way.

Remember, we will work by way of drafts, so things do not have to be perfect for the first draft.



Take-Home Essay #2:

Notions of Home

In chapter 3 of Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah says, “That night for the first time in my life, I realized that it is the physical presence of people and their spirits that gives a town life.”  What prompts him to say this?  What changes has he seen take place around him?  (e.g. “At this early point in the story, Ishmael has seen, . . He has witnessed, . . He has begun wondering/ fearing/ realizing. . . “)

A large part of Ishmael’s experience involves a change in his understanding of home and place. (You can use this sentence as the beginning of a paragraph for your essay.)

What is Ishmael’s experience of home and village life as a child growing up?  What associations would probably come to his mind (what words and phrases would he think about, just thinking about home?) as he thinks about home before the war?  As he moves from village to village, how does his experience of “home” and “village life” change?  In what ways do each of the villages he encounters “twist” or “up-end” (turn upside down) his early experiences of home?  (Note contrasts and ironies.)

Compare Ishmael’s early experience of home and village life with your own experience of home and the life of the community you come from.  Note similarities (even though your home experience may be from a city or small-family life) and differences.  

Discuss how your experience of “home” seems to be changing as you grow older and take on more experience.  (Are you part of more, different communities than when you were younger? Has home changed for you?  Do you think changing our minds about “home” is part of life? Explain.)

Take-Home Essay #3:                 
On the Road of Growth and Progress

Many people think of their lives as a road toward somewhere.  Usually, we move and direct our lives toward some goal to meet our potential.  Sometimes the road winds—with twists and turns—and we may take a “detour” because of the situations we encounter.  It’s possible at such times to feel stuck or to forget who we are.  But because we are always in the midst of our journey, never at the end, it is never easy to tell if the “twists,” “turns” and “forgettings” on our journey are really detours or just part of what keeps us moving forward!   (Hint: Your introduction needs to mention, in your own way, the theme-words of “journey,” “road,” “detour,” “forgetting”—words like this that you use to craft some interesting sentences that will lead to the rest of the essay.)

Think of Ishmael:  How does he grow and change up to the point of the book you’ve read so far (up to chapter 15 or so)? What events lead him to his association with the army (up to chapter 12)  and what allows him to take a gun in his hands (chapter 12)?  Does the phrase “forgetting who you are” apply to Ishmael (chapters 12-15)?  Explain how you know.

Optional: Also think of Basilio from “Devil’s Miner” (and try to compare him to Ishmael).  Would you say his work in the mines is a “detour” for him or part of his growth?  Explain.

Then relate to Ishmael in terms of what you know about the difficulty young people today often have “keeping to the road” of their lives and best interests.  How might the metaphors of “road,” “journey,” “detour” and such words apply to lives today? 

Take-Home Essay #4
Notions of Childhood

In Chapter One of One Day the Soldiers Came, Charles London says of child soldiers, "It would be both presumptuous and meaningless to say that they did not have a 'childhood' because they did not grow up in the rather unique safety and stability common to Western notions of childhood" (page 17).   He supports this point by discussing the assumptions of a perfect childhood in Western culture and the difficulties (and rarity) of a family or culture that is able to ensure such a childhood.  London also weaves in the factors of children's rationality and decision-making, as he questions whether there is indeed a true separation between adult and child worlds as many people imagine.

What is your notion of childhood?  Where do you get your ideas of what a childhood should be (Do you, or have until now, gotten your ideas of childhood from the media?  from other families as you imagined them?  from how you or friends grew up?  from the differences you have observed among families, or across cultures you have known?)

 

What are Charles London's important points about childhood?  Summarize chapter one (especially pages 12-22) according to what he is saying and the ideas you most connect with.   As you summarize, intersperse your own comments on specific thoughts of London.   As you write about London, you may "go off track" to comment, but make sure you come back to London's ideas.

 

Then based on Long Way Gone, talk about how Ishmael might describe "notions of childhood."  To what extent did he have a "normal" childhood, free from care?   How did his culture (for example, the army officers and rebel commanders) contrast ideas of what is "good" and proper for children?  How did Ishmael's experience in Benin Home and with his uncle show a certain view of childhood as well?

You may also want to use the example of Musa and/ or Xavier from Chapter 5 of One Day the Soldiers Came, as well as Basilio from "The Devil's Miner," as the subject of at least another two paragraphs for your essay in which you thoughtfully consider in what ways, and how, a separation between adult and child worlds does or does not (or should or should not) exist.