Cafiero 1
IM Student
Mr. Cafiero
English IV
1 April 2019
Some Sort of Title
Humans use myths to explain the times before history. With creation myths, different groups record their own real histories in the form of stories. Two examples of this are the myths of the Maori people of New Zealand and the Dutch people of Holland. While the stories are different, they both tell of a group of people in the time before history.
The first paragraph introduces the topic- myths.
The second sentence is the (very bad!) thesis: creation myths tell true stories.
For the Maori, there is the legend of Paikea, the Whale Rider. Long ago, the myth goes, the people of Hawaiki, where the ancestors are, heard the land of New Zealand calling out for people. The different wakas, the big canoes holding entire families, set out to find this new land.
This shows that humans are guided by supernatural forces, just like in the myths. Paikea leaves his waka and rides the whale to discover New Zealand. In the film “Whale Rider” the grandfather says that the old ways passed down from the ancestors are the only way to save their culture and their land. (Caro) So, what out means to be human according to the myth of Paikea the Whale Rider is that you have to be in touch with your ancestors to have a human culture and land.
The note (Caro) indicates the source of the “Whale Rider” paraphrase.

Cafiero 2
On the other hand, the people of the Netherlands tell the story of how their people grew from the bulb of a tulip and then created windmills to ward off giants. (Flanders) This shows that the Dutch people are connected to the land, through the tulips. They are also colorful and die in the winter, just like the tulip. The windmill connection with giants is not explained in the myths, but may have something to do with the Spanish knight Don Quixote.
The note (Flanders) indicates the source of the Dutch nonsense. There should be one more paragraph based on a myth we have studied, but I hope you get the idea by now…
What both of these stories, these creation myths, do is tell the actual historical facts of how the people telling the myths were created. They help us understand humanity by showing us who we are and where we come from. Without these myths, we would have only history, science, and reason to explain these aspects of humanity.
The final paragraph contains a conclusion which ties the ideas together, points back to the thesis, and explains why it matters. This paper could really use one more example from each myth to reinforce the ideas, but this is a sort of bare-bones version of the essay format.

Cafiero 3
Works Cited
Caro, Niki. Whale Rider . South Pacific Pictures, 2002.
“Whale Rider” is a film that explores the people of modern New Zealand through the eyes of a young Maori girl, Paikea, named after a mythological figure. It deals with the origin of her people and their station in the modern world.
Flanders, Ned. "From The Tulip To The Windmill". Factcheck.Org, 1648, https:// www.factcheck.org/fake-news/.
This web page is an entirely fictional website Mr. Cafiero made up as an example, where a character from "The Simpsons” explains Dutch myths that Mr. Cafiero made up off the top of his head. Please never ever quote this site or its ridiculous ideas.
The annotated works cited contains the complete citations of every source quoted or paraphrased in the paper. After each citation, and indented to match the hanging text, is a brief description of the work and some idea why it was chosen by the author of the paper.