Please answer just one of the following in essay form. This in-class essay will be a rough draft of the final essay. The essay will be 3-4 pages average Look closely at the essays. Your paper should develop a single thesis [or controlling idea], draw on sources, quotes from the essays. This in-class essay is open-book, open notes. It will be signed by me at the end of class and you will staple it to your finished paper.
1. Aristotle, in "On Rhetoric," establishes two ways to write-rhetoric or dialectic. Compare the two. How is one better than the other? In what ways? Are they in fact equally valuable for a writer to know?
2. Write a division and analysis paper on Al Ghazali's "Manners to be Observed..." What is Al Ghazali trying to teach us? Are his points valid? You might take a few from either side [student/teacher] or from both. Discuss.
3. Define a term or concept from one of the essays. Ask and answer the question, "What is...Freedom? Virtue? Happiness? Education? Love? Morality/Ethics? Power? Compassion? Law? Judgment? What do the essays say about these ideas?
4. What is the central message of Hsun Tzu's "Encouraging Learning"? What is he actually trying to teach us when he argues that learning is a lifetime goal and that the educated person is a "cultured" person? Is he right in your judgment?
5. Mencius argues that man's nature is "good" while Hsun Tzu argues that man's nature is "evil." What are the ramifications of these ideas politically? If you were to follow Mencius's ideas, for example, would you allow people to make their own choices? Does Mencius's way of thinking lead to democratic structures?
6. Write an essay in which you examine the "structure" of any of the essays. How does the author "design" the argument? Is it effective? What are the "parts' of the essay and how do they contribute to the "whole?" You might compare two essays.
7. Discuss the concept of "rewards and punishments" in relation to Luke, Chapter 16. The two parables deal with this subject. We are rewarded by certain behaviors and punished by others. Discuss.
8. Define logos, ethos, and pathos as guides for a writer. In what ways does following Aristotle's precepts here lead to better writing?
9. Compare the teachings of Buddhism with what modern physics is discovering about the universe in Ricard and Thuan's "The Universe in a Grain of Sand." If you want to you may study just Buddhism or just physics.
10. Write an essay from "Questions, Strategies" at the end of any chapter.