Draft Thesis Statements 1 + 4pages Essay 1--Draft

2020/11/7 Preparing for your First Essay: Fal20 ENGL 001C #75855 INTERMEDIATE COMPOSITION-CRITI-Online

https://canvas.pasadena.edu/courses/1107738/pages/preparing-for-your-first-essay?module_item_id=12416027 1/1

Preparing for your First Essay Critical Thinking. Argument. Reasoning

Thinking like a mountain . . . about wolves, about climate change, about extinction

Understanding the Earth's systems, the ecosystem, our life-support system

Biodiversity--resilience, thresholds, disturbances, connectivity

Now is the time to review what you have read and written so far in this course. Please do that, then return to this page to reflect on your own thinking process.

What are you learning? What is changing in you? How does it feel?

In the first essay, and in all of the others, I will ask you to think for yourself, to honor your thinking process, and to write about what you think.

Sometimes students are taken aback by this. Our society and our educational institutions do not always support critical thinking, let alone freedom of thought. For some, education has been more about what to think than how to think. Our culture is awash in "fake news", social media madness, advertising, and confusion.

But here we are. It is time to evolve.

On the next page you will find the prompt for the first essay. This will be followed by guidelines and review of the elements of argument and the academic essay. It is important that you take a moment to breathe and reflect on all the lessons and materials so far, as these are meant to inform and inspire your writing.