The Ishmael essay has two goals: The first is to ensure that you’ve read and fully understand the themes, ideas, and lessons of the book. The second, and more important, is to encourage you to think deeply and critically about its themes, ideas and lessons.
Assignment: Write a 5-7 page (double spaced) reflective essay that explores your reactions, emotions and thoughts about Ishmael. The assignment is somewhat vague, in order to give you room to explore thoughts and deeply reflect.
Some guidelines to help as you prepare your essay.
I do not what a summary of the book. If you need to summarize some main ideas in the book to make your argument, fine, but the summary should make a very small portion of our essay.
Your essay should contain a thesis in the beginning and the rest of the essay should be written in support of your thesis. This doesn’t mean it has to be a persuasive essay, but it does mean it needs to have a clear focus and organization. The thesis can be whatever you want it to be – as broad or narrow as you wish – but it must exist and your job is to develop and support it.
Your essay should clearly demonstrate that you have read and reflected on the entire book (reading and responding to just one chapter won’t cut it). It should not be a collection of your musings about life. The essay should be grounded in the broad themes of the book, or particular ideas that you find poignant, and your developed reactions to them.
