1A Formative Assessment #1 for Following Your Passion Essay
Learning Objectives for Formative Assessment #1, Follow Your Passion Essay
One. Write an introduction paragraph for your first essay that frames the debate of whether or not we should follow our passion when we select a career.
Two. Use this paragraph as a building block for your Follow Your Passion essay.
Three. Show an authentic connection to your subject matter to make your readers care about your exposition.
Assignment Description
Write an Introductory Paragraph
I recommend one of four approaches for your introductory paragraph.
Approach #1: Write a paragraph in which you write an extended definition of what Cal Newport means when he critiques “The Passion Trap.” Then transition to your thesis paragraph in which you agree, disagree, or both agree and disagree with Newport’s claim.
Approach #2: Write a personal paragraph about your struggle to find a career that you are passionate about on one hand and is practical for your long-term financial needs on the other. Then transition to your thesis.
Approach #3: Write a paragraph about someone you know who started a career with minimum interest and passion but over time as the person became more skilled at this career the person’s passion sprung from the added skills and expertise.
Approach #4: Write a paragraph about someone you know who pursued his or her passion and how this resulted in a Big Nothing Burger, a complete flop, because the person’s pursuit of passion was done blindly.
Example of Approach #4 Introductory Paragraph with Transition to Thesis Paragraph
Stanley was a big proponent of "follow your dreams." After he graduated from high school in 1977 and took some acting classes at a local community college, he dropped out to move to Los Angeles where he spent the 1980s working as a waiter and trying to make a break into Hollywood. He spent his money on coaches, mentors, acting gurus, body language masters, voice instructors, New Age positive thinking experts, all in an attempt to step up his game. He landed a few small parts here and there, just enough work to make him feel he was on the verge of making it. His optimism grew in the 1990s when he met some film directors who gave him some small roles and hinted at getting him larger roles when the opportunity came. Feeding on these dreams while living in a squalid apartment in the 1990s, Stanley continued to live a life of abject obscurity and futility with the hope that he just had to follow his dream and be persistent and that these two qualities would guarantee his success. He remained inside this delusional bubble for nearly two more decades while he lived in a roach-infested apartment in downtown L.A. where he supplemented his income by delivering plasma and working as a masseuse, a job he had to give up when his hands become afflicted with arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. At the age of 60, around 2018, Stanley got strep throat and couldn't afford antibiotics since none of his part-time gigs offered health insurance. Curled into the fetal position on his apartment's bare mattress with roaches crawling over him, he wept as he felt betrayed by the fact that he had done what the American Dream told him to do: He sacrificed everything to follow his passion and remained tenacious over four decades to bring his dreams to fruition, but he knew in that moment that he was a pathetic, miserable failure, and that his dreams had soured and curdled into rotten milk.
This curdling of our dreams and the false promise of following those dreams is explored in Cal Newport's important book So Good They Can't Ignore You and his accompanying YouTube video "'Follow Your Passion' Is Bad Advice" in which Newport makes a persuasive case for replacing the Passion Hypothesis with the craftsman mindset. His claim rests on four compelling observations. Passion without spending time mastering a craft is worthless. Passion is not some low-hanging fruit that we pick from a tree, but an asset we develop over 10,000 hours of sustained hard work and tedium. Only 2% of the human race work at a "dream job." Most of us must find happiness because we are a "dream employer" who is valued based on the mastery of our craft. And finally, courage to pursue your dream without an honest assessment of your capital is dangerous and self-destructive.
List of Requirements for This Assignment
One. Your introduction paragraph effectively frames the debate of whether or not we should follow our passion when selecting a career.
Two. Your paragraph either tells a compelling story about a person’s quest for connecting passion with career or gives a clear definition of what Cal Newport describes as “The Passion Trap.”
Three. Your paragraph should be between 150-200 words in length.
Four. Your paragraph should be uploaded as an attachment to either turnitin or Unicheck, depending on which platform has a contract with the college.
How I Break Down Your Grade for This Assignment of 25 Points
One. Clarity and usefulness of your paragraph for establishing the importance of the subject to your reader, 10 points.
Two. Have sufficient details to establish a meaningful, authentic approach to the subject. A writer never wants to just “go through the motions,” that is to say, deliver a perfunctory effort. Deliver the degree of authenticity and meaning this subject deserves, 10 points.
Three. Write full sentences and avoid sentence mechanics, spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Be especially mindful of avoiding comma splice and sentence fragments, 5 points.
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