Short Essay #1 : 300-500 words Read the essay “What I Have Lived For” by the great English writer Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). In it, Russell looks into his own mind and heart, and asks himself this question: “what motivates me most strongly?” Russell describes what he believes are his three deepest motivations, or passions. What does he mean by this? If he examines all his different interests and choices, and traces their chains of causation backward, asking ‘why did I do that?’ and ‘what inspired me to make that choice’, at the origin, he finds these three motivations in his own heart: desire for love, desire for knowledge, and pity for the sufferings of humanity. What are your three greatest motivations? Write an essay of between 350 and 500 words in which you describe what pushes you to do what you do every day. Is it a desire to improve the world? Loyalty to your country? A sense of duty to your parents? A curiosity about how the world works? A desire to have nice things? Or are your motives similar to Russell’s? Or something else entirely? It’s your choice. But I want you to look into the mirror and ask: “why do I live my life the way I do? What motivates me?” Russell’s essay is so emotionally honest, and he is so unafraid to admit what is in his heart, we can easily become carried away by his feeling, and fail to notice how carefully and neatly structured his words are. Notice the relationship between the thesis statement in the opening paragraph “Three passions…have governed my life…”, and the topic sentences of each of the following three paragraphs. Notice how, after their topic sentences (which summarize the paragraph to come) the three paragraphs describe the three passions in detail. Russell’s essay is powerful and easy to read precisely because he organizes heartfelt, emotional truths into a cool, logical structure. If we didn’t have time to read the whole essay, we could capture the main idea by just reading the thesis statement, the topic sentences of each paragraph, and the concluding two sentences. This is the power of good structure. Before you begin writing your essay, read “Three Passions” and then ask yourself what YOUR three strongest motivations are. Rubric You will be graded the following measures: Content: (20%) A unified idea is expressed substantively through the development of the thesis Organization: (20%) Fluent expression of ideas, clearly stated and supported with logically sequenced details Vocabulary: (25%) A sophisticated range of words, well-chosen and in an appropriate register Language Use (30%) Effective grammatical constructions with few errors (agreement, tense, number, word order, articles, pronouns, prepositions) Mechanics (5%) Mastery of conventions (spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing) You can find the text of Russell’s essay, “What I Have Lived For” (which he wrote at the age of 84) here: https://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~bertrand/misc.htm
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