1. Name: ____________________________________________________
Independent Reading Unit: Timed Argumentative Essay
Directions: Read the list of essay prompts below; choose one and then complete the
following:
Take a moment to reflect on this statement. Then, write a well-organized essay in
which you explore the validity of the assertion, using examples from your reading,
observation, studies or experience to develop your position.
Prompts (choose one):
In his essay, "Circles," Ralph Waldo Emerson argues that all the truly great moments of
history have involved "the facilities of performance through the strength of ideas."
A.
In Jane Austen’s novel, Persuasion, the protagonist observes, “Here and there, human
nature may be great in times of trial, but generally speaking it is its weakness and not
its strength that appears in the sick chamber; it is selfishness and impatience rather
than generosity and fortitude, that one hears of […].”
B.
“It’s an unnerving thought that we may be the living universe’s supreme achievement
and its worst nightmare simultaneously.”
--Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
C.
In his 1981 novel, VILAS, Philip K. Dick said, “It is sometimes an appropriate response
to reality to go insane.”

2. D.
“It is not what happens to a man… it is was a man does with what happens to him.”
--Aldous Huxley
E.
“Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and
bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.”
--Ambrose Bierce
F.
Take a moment to reflect on this statement. Then, write a well-organized essay in
which you explore the validity of the assertion, using examples from your reading,
observation, studies or experience to develop your position.
(40 minutes)