Journey of Transformation -‐ CORE 1101
Paper #1
The first paper corresponds to the readings from the first section of the course. In a paper of 900-‐1200 words ( 4 pages long), please respond to the following:
At the beginning of this class we encountered a quote from Thomas Merton in
the Epigraph of the Journey reader. In it, he asserts that the goal of education (and, implicitly, life itself) is to aid a person in finding her or his own true self, and to avoid what Merton calls “distractions” in order to save one’s self (and one’s society) from a meaningless, superficial existence. In an interview with Esquire magazine, filmmaker Woody Allen asserts something quite different:
It's just an accident that we happen to be on earth, enjoying our silly little moments, distracting ourselves as often as possible so we don't have to really face up to the fact that, you know, we're just temporary people with a very short time in a universe that will eventually be completely gone. And everything that you value, whether it's Shakespeare, Beethoven, da Vinci, or whatever, will be gone. The earth will be gone. The sun will be gone. There'll be nothing. The best you can do to get through life is distraction. Love works as a distraction. And work works as a distraction. You can distract yourself a billion different ways. But the key is to distract yourself.
For Allen, in life, there is nothing beyond distraction, so, by all means, distract
yourself.
Using one work from Plato and one work from Hebrew Scripture or The
Gospel of Luke, respond to these two arguments. That is, use these works to either (A) support the claim of Merton that we really are called beyond distractions to discover some truer self, or (B) support the claim of Allen that the “calling” to a truer self is a sham, and the best we can hope for is to be distracted along the way.
Papers are due by the start of class on Monday, October 6th. Students are required to submit the papers in hard copy form and upload to the “Assignments” section on Blackboard. No late papers will be accepted. Each student will be granted one 48-‐hour extension that can be applied to either of the two papers. This is to assist students who, because of extenuating circumstances, fail to meet the deadline. No other extensions, for any reason, will be granted.
Paper Guidelines
Papers are to demonstrate critical engagement with the assigned readings, but will also be graded for the organization, style, and clarity of students’ own argument. A more detailed explanation of what is expected in these papers and how they will be assessed will be provided to the students in class and posted on Blackboard.
Be sure that your paper has a well-‐articulated thesis in the opening paragraph— i.e.: state what you are going to argue—followed by supporting paragraphs in which you draw on information from the reading to build and defend your thesis. In other words, you need to make a claim and provide evidence to back it up.
In keeping with that requirement, I ask that you do two things:
1.) Separate your thesis from the body of the paper. Place it above the start of the paper. This prepares me for what the paper is going to be about, so I can start looking immediately for your arguments.
2.) Include at least four passages from the readings.
You may use any accepted method of citation. Since no outside sources are required for the paper, parenthetical documentation is fine. When citing from the course reader, you can simply write JOT and the page number, i.e.: (JOT, 28), but be sure to state in your text who you are quoting. Don’t just have a quote without attribution! For the Hebrew Scriptures and Gospel readings, you may choose to use standard biblical referencing—i.e. (Gen. 12:3).
In this and all other assignments, students are expected to act in accordance with
the policies on academic integrity set forth by the College of Arts and Sciences.
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