The Ishmael paper has two goals. The book can be found online at http://www.125books.com/move-other-bk?file=x%20%20Ishmael%20-%20Daniel%20Quinn.pdf .The first is to ensure that you’ve read and fully understand the themes,ideas, and lessons in Ishmael. The second, and more important, is to encourage you to think deeply and
critically about those themes, ideas, and lessons. With that in mind, the essay prompt is this:
Write a 5-7 page (double-spaced) reflective essay that explores your reactions, emotions, and
thoughts about Ishmael.
This prompt is intentionally (and, yes, frustratingly) vague. The reason for the vagueness is that each person is
going to have very different reactions to the book, and I don’t want to restrict your freedom of thought.
However, here are some general guidelines that should help:
– I do not want a summary of the book. I’ve read it; I know what it contains. If you need to summarize
some main ideas in the book to make your argument, fine, but summary should make up a very small
proportion of your paper.
– Your essay should contain a thesis in the beginning, and the rest of the essay should be written in
support of this thesis. This doesn’t mean it has to be a persuasive essay, but it does mean it needs to
have clear focus and organization. The thesis can be whatever you want, and can be as broad or
narrow as you wish—but it must exist, and your job is to develop and support it. Essays that jump
around between dozens of topics are confusing; I get frustrated when reading confusing essays and
grade accordingly. Think back to the writing feedback you received in your lower division courses
and apply it here.
– Your essay should clearly demonstrate that you have read and reflected on the entire book (so
reading and responding to just one chapter won’t cut it). It should not just be a collection of your
musings about life. The paper should be grounded in the broad themes of the book, or particular
ideas that you find poignant, and your reactions to them.
– Your essay can be either more personal (e.g. “This book made me feel ___”) or more academic (e.g.
“Ishmael explored themes of ___, and when evaluated through the lens of ___, there are interesting
connections to ___.”). However, even if you write an academic style paper, I still want to know how
the book affected you. It should not be wholly abstract. So, it’s likely impossible to write an A paper
without some statements in the first-person.
– I am not going to grade you on your opinion; that’s impossible. I will grade you on a) your
understanding of the text (broad themes, ideas, main messages) as you demonstrate it with your
writing, b) the appropriateness, depth, and quality of your thesis, c) how well you support your thesis
(which means that things like organization, diction, grammar, eloquence, and conciseness matter a
great deal), and d) the depth of your analysis: I want you at a level of synthesis—taking the ideas of the
book, combining them with your own ideas and knowledge to create novel ideas—and deep selfreflection,
not mere description.
While reading the book, keep notes of things that you find interesting, poignant, mind-blowing, unconvincing, wrong, etc. (keeping in mind I’d like you to respond to the book’s broad themes, not to nitpick
individual sentences). If you make it through the book without it having provoked any thoughts, you probably just need to read it more carefully
