College Prep Composition – Investigating Essay #2
Essential Questions:
1) What is considered happiness/sadness and is that the same for everyone?
2) Does interaction with others make people happy?
3) What are different ways people cope with sadness?
Learning Targets:
1) I can produce compositions that introduce a central idea and develop it with appropriate,
specific evidence, cogent explanations, and clear transitions.
2) I know how to evaluate the credibility of a source.
3) I know how to determine the strengths and limits of the information from a particular source as
it relates to my question/problem.
4) I know how to gather information from a range of print and digital sources.
5) I know how to combine information effectively from several sources to answer my question or
solve my problem.
6) I know how to correctly cite the sources I use.
We hold these truths to be selfevident: that all men are created
People pursuit happiness in many ways.
Some find it; some do not. Sadness and
depression are also real, raw emotions.
And, ironically, it often takes a sad and
depressing life experience to help us
pursuit true happiness.
equal; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
The Constitution only gives people
the right to pursue happiness. You
have to catch it yourself.
Benjamin Franklin
Writing Prompt
Write a personal essay in which you describe and reflect upon how you’ve found happiness in your life
and how you have experienced sadness. Your description should include specific experiences illustrating
both your happy and sad times. Your reflections should include personal discoveries about yourself,
about how you achieve happiness, and about how you cope with sadness.
Alternative Prompt
Write a personal essay in which you describe and reflect upon how someone close to you has found
happiness in his/her life and how he/she has experienced sadness. Your description should include
specific experiences from his/her life illustrating both his/her happy and sad times. Your reflections
should include discoveries you have about the definition of happiness based upon his/her stories,
lessons you’ve learned about happiness from his/her life, and lessons you’ve learned about coping with
sadness from his/her experiences.
DIRECTIONS:
LENGTH: MINIMUM OF 6 PARAGRAPHS (INTRO, 4 BODY, CONCLUSION)
The primary source for this paper is YOU!
You must use at least four outside sources for this essay. Two of them must be written sources (i.e.
books, magazines, professional journals, etc.) One must be Happy.
YOU MUST USE AT LEAST TWO SOURCES FROM PANDA.
YOU MAY NOT USE SOURCES FROM THE INTERNET UNLESS THEY ARE APPROVED BY MS. ESSNER OR
MRS. F-R AND HAVE OUR SIGNITURE ON THE PRINT OUT.
You will use running text citation when citing sources. This means you will give the author’s name and
title of article/magazine/book.
You MUST use MLA format for your essay and your Works Cited page. Refer to handout or Purdue Owl
for guides.
Essays will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
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Do you have an effective lead and conclusion?
Does your essay have a narrow FOCUS?
Does your essay have a logical ORGANIZATION?
Does your essay include SPECIFICS (sensory details, dialogue, snapshots, vivid verbs, specific
nouns) and much detail?
Is your essay free of serious errors in punctuation, grammar, and sentence structures?
Is your essay using minimum amounts of “be” verbs and “got”?
Have you smoothly incorporated your sources? Have you cited them correctly? Is your Works
Cited page in the correct format?