Remember: Clarity; Cogency; Completeness
Topic: being yourself
Statement: Theme: Point has to be ABOUT the topic: What do these texts show/teach/suggest/point up about the topic?
Responses:
Good: There is nothing so difficult or so essential to life than being yourself. These texts show how important it is to find who you are and to be that and only that.
Better: If it were easy to be oneself, everyone would do it. In fact, it is difficult to have the desire to discover who one really is and the courage to express that sense of self. If I have learned nothing else from the texts, it’s that my own struggle to be myself is mirrored in the challenges faced by the characters.
Best: The truth is that it’s as difficult now to be true to oneself as it was in the days when Polonius advised Laertes in Hamlet: “And this above all. To thine own self be true.” A person must know who she is first and then be willing to express that sense of self in a world that would like to keep her constrained and limited. The texts from the first semester show us there is nothing so difficult but so essential to one’s happiness in life than being yourself. I know this truth for myself. In that last year I have come to grips with the challenge of fully expressing who I am for fear of being rejected by my peers. Like the characters in the texts we read, I have wrestled with the finding the courage to be who I really am.