Writing 90 Final Writing Assessment
Reading & Listening Response
You will write one summary and one short summary-response essay for your final exam.
Please ask your kind and understanding instructor for help if you need it!
Directions

Listen to the audio essay, “All Beings Are Interconnected” by James Loney, peaceworker
and former hostage in Iraq.

Read Loney’s essay carefully. Underline or highlight ideas that really grip you. Make
margin notes.

Summarize Loney’s essay, just as we learned to do in class. Because this is what I will use
to assess your summaries, use the summary rubric to revise your summary. Score
yourself.

Select a quotation-question pair from the list below, and then re-read the Loney’s essay
with this in mind. Make more margin notes.
1. James Loney: “…there were times when the walls around us would dissolve and I
could see, with perfect blue-sky clarity, that everything I needed to know about
the world was immediately available to me.” Was there a time when you
suddenly understood something—and this made you happy and free from dread
that you would fail at something important to you?
2. James Loney: “Whenever we soil someone else with violence, whether through a
war, poverty, racism or neglect, we invariably soil ourselves.” What do you think
Loney meant by this statement?
3. Uncle, Loney’s prison guard: "When you are free, I will be free.” What do you
think Uncle meant by this statement? Think about a time when you felt you were
being “held hostage” by the circumstances of your life.

Develop your thesis and refine it so that it is a complex statement. Use concession, if
possible.

Outline your essay, minimally showing your thesis statement and topic sentences. I
encourage you to use the blueprint for a summary-response essay posted on the portal.
2

Write a short essay composed of 3 paragraphs—one (1) introductory paragraph (your
summary plus your thesis), one (1) body paragraph, and one short concluding
paragraph. Consult the checklist attached to this assignment to make sure that you
submit all the required items for this essay.

Revise your essay. Check for unity, the use of transitions, conjunctions, and concession.
Feel free to use the materials on the portal and the handouts I have given you this term.

Proofread your essay using the grammar/spell checker on the computer.

Submit your essay and your outline or blueprint.
Essay Formatting
Your essay must be formatted in MLA style (ask for help if you need it) and double-spaced.
What Must Be Submitted:
 Summary
 Summary Rubric, scored by you
 Essay final draft
 Essay blueprint or outline
 Essay rubric, scored by you
Please do follow the rules below:
1. Stay on the portal pages on the internet. If you feel you need to use the web aside
from our portal pages, please ask for permission first.
2. Do not talk out loud. If you have a question, leave your seat and come to your
instructor. Use a low voice when you speak.
3. No cellphones or electronic devices should be in evidence.
4. You may use earbuds/phones with your portable listening device. Please keep the
volume low enough that it cannot be heard by your neighbors.
5. If you write your essay by hand, take care to make your handwriting legible and
double-space. Format your page in MLA style.
6. Keep track of the time. I will place the ending time on the board.
Good luck, and please do remember, the only silly question is the one not asked!
Have a lovely holiday and a safe & joyous New Year!
Mt. Hood Community College, Mary Kelly-Klein, Instructor
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All Beings Are Interconnected
by James Loney
Christian peace activist James Loney was
captured by Iraqi militants in Baghdad in
November 2005. He and two other hostages
were rescued four months later, while a fourth
was killed. Loney lives in Toronto, where he
remains active in the peace movement.
Courtesy of James Loney
All Things Considered, July 2, 2007
I believe all things and all beings are interconnected.
I saw this most clearly in the time I was a hostage. For 118 days, when the world was
reduced to what could be heard and said and done while handcuffed and chained with three
other men in a cold, paint-peeling, eternally gloomy, 10-by-12-foot room. But despite being
vanished off the face of the Earth, there were times when the walls around us would
dissolve and I could see, with perfect blue-sky clarity, that everything I needed to know
about the world was immediately available to me.
One day, our captors treated us to some Pepsi. We were very excited — more about the
bottle than about the Pepsi, because it meant we could now relieve ourselves in urgent
circumstances. As you might expect, it's not easy to relieve yourself in urgent circumstances
when your right and left hands are handcuffed to someone else's right and left hands.
Sometimes, despite our most careful efforts, we ended up with an unfortunate mess.
Mt. Hood Community College, Mary Kelly-Klein, Instructor
4
On a later day, after bringing us a particularly greasy lunch (fried eggplant rolled up in a tiny
bit of flatbread), the captor we called Uncle needed to clean his greasy fingers. He saw a rag
hanging on the back of a chair and used it to wipe his hands. He did not know that it was our
Unfortunate Mess Rag, and that it had been used earlier that morning.
In that moment I saw how everything we do, even the things that seem most insignificant —
cleaning up a mess or wiping our hands — affects everything and everyone else. Uncle
thought he was simply rubbing some grease off his fingers, but in reality he was soiling
himself in the squalor and degradation of our captivity — without him knowing it, or us
intending it.
Uncle was one of our guards. With keys in one hand and gun in the other, his power over us
seemed absolute, but he was not free. He said so himself on one of those interminable days
when we asked him if he had any news about when we would be released. He pointed
glumly to his wrists as if he himself were handcuffed and said, "When you are free, I will be
free."
I believe there are many ways we can hold one another captive. It might be with a gun, an
army, a holy book, a law, an invisible free-market hand. It doesn't matter how we do it,
whom we do it to, or why. There is no escaping it: We ourselves become captives whenever
we hold another in captivity. Whenever we soil someone else with violence, whether
through a war, poverty, racism or neglect, we invariably soil ourselves. It is only when we
turn away from dominating others that we can begin to discover what the Christian
scriptures call "the glorious freedom of the children of God."
This essay was produced by Anne Penman for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. NPR's This I Believe is
independently produced by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick.
Source: This I Believe (National Public Radio),
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11505283 or http://thisibelieve.org/essay/30865/
Mt. Hood Community College, Mary Kelly-Klein, Instructor