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Recently we went over the package of poems relating to identity: Identity

Photo Credit: Abode of Chaos via Compfight cc

All of those poems, as well as a lot of the things we’ve talked about this year have some connection to the theme of personal identity. Consider the dress code discussion/essay, and think about clothes and perhaps how you are perceived contributes to your identity. Think about Curley’s wife, and her identity (the way she sees herself vs. the way that the workers on the ranch see her), Crooks, Candy, Curley, or Lennie and how they’re perceived vs. how they really are.

What about Caitlyn (Bruce) Jenner and the publicity surrounding that story? http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/caitlyn-jenner-a-role-model-says-winnipeg-transgender-woman-1.3096376 How much does gender and your appearance impact your personal identity? What would it be like to see yourself as a different gender than that which you were born?

There are many different approaches you could take when considering the topic of identity. Your job for today is to narrow down that topic and come up with one aspect that you could turn into an essay.

The first thing you should do is NARROW down the topic. Doing an essay on “identity” is too broad. If you narrow it down to the impact of clothing or gender stereotypes or friends, musical preferences, etc. and how one of those things impacts your identity, either how you see yourself or how others see you, then you have a narrower, more manageable topic!

Start brainstorming points related to your topic. Find articles or issues, or just come up with your own ideas. Make lots of point form notes, and then try to organize them into topics, either overall or for supporting paragraphs.

Do some reading and thinking. Come up with an opinion that you could support in 3 different ways. Be prepared to share a thesis sentence tomorrow in class. In order to make your thesis stronger, you need to come up with 3 different topics that can be explored in a supporting paragraph.

For example, I could write an essay about how becoming a parent greatly impacted my identity. I could consider how that’s changed the way that I see myself and how others see me. I could easily write an essay using the following thesis:

• Becoming a parent drastically changes one’s identity in terms of how others see you, your children’s perception of who you are, and the way that you see yourself.

I could easily go on to explain all 3 of those things in paragraphs and wrap that up in an essay. It’s not a brilliant opinion, but it’s easy to explain and I could create a strong argument based on that idea.

That’s what you should be doing today!