No. 4

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

I do not feel terrible about my mistakes, though I grieve the pain they have sometimes caused others. Our lives are “experiments with truth,” and in an experiment negative results are at least as important as successes. I have no idea how I would have learned the truth about myself and my calling without the mistakes I have made.

Adapted from Parker Palmer, “Let Your Life Speak”

Assignment: Is it necessary to make mistakes, even when doing so has negative consequences for other people? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

No. 5

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

An actor, when his cue came, was unable to move onto the stage. He said, “I can’t get in, the chair is in the way.” And the producer said, “Use the difficulty. If it’s a drama, pick the chair up and smash it. If it’s a comedy fall over it.” From this experience the actor concluded that in any situation in life that is negative, there is something positive you can do with it.

Adapted from Lawrence Eisenberg, “Caine Scrutiny”

Assignment: Can any obstacle or disadvantage be turned into something good? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

No. 6

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

We don’t really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we make a mistake, until something fails to go as we had hoped. When everything is working well, with no problems or failure, what incentive do we have to try something new? We are only motivated to learn when we experience difficulties.

Adapted from Alain de Botton, “How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel”

Assignment: Does true learning only occur when we experience difficulties? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

No. 7

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

There are two kinds of pretending. There is the bad kind, as when a person falsely promises to be your friend. But there is also a good kind, where the pretense eventually turns into the real thing. For example, when you are not feeling particularly friendly, the best thing you can do, very often, is to act in a friendly manner. In a few minutes, you may really be feeling friendlier.

Adapted from a book by C. S. Lewis

Assignment: Can deception — pretending that something is true when it is not — sometimes have good results? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.