Engler-Lynch: ENGWR 300+
Formal Essay #2: Reflection
Due: Fri., Nov. 9, 2018
Essay Focus: Choose one sentence in Jeannette Walls’s autobiography The Glass Castle and reflect on how it is meaningful in the story, in society today, and in your own life.
Important Info: The Glass Castle, published in 2005, is an autobiography about the upbringing and early adulthood of best-selling author Jeannette Walls. Walls was raised in the 1960s and ‘70s in both western and eastern regions of the U.S., and in her memoir she explores her incredible experience growing up in a close-knit but deeply dysfunctional family. Though it is her own story, it includes many universal themes. These themes are wide-ranging and involve complex aspects of humanity - including family, relationships, personal values, responsibility, law, morality, hope, moral choices, human strength, inner weakness, and addiction - that are relevant to us and to society today. The book is peppered with insights that we can reflect on and learn from. These sentiments enlighten us about the author, and also about our world and ourselves. In your essay, you are to choose one sentence from the book that you find particularly meaningful and reflect on it. Ideally it is one sentence, but it can be a paragraph or short passage. Your reflection will look at the sentence in four different ways: how it is significant in its scene, in other parts of the story, in society today, and in your own life.
Organization
Introduction π:
Topic = the book you are examining. Explain its publication info (title, author, genre, date). Then summarize the
book in 2 – 3 sentences only. (Topic = 2 – 4 sentences).
Focus = the quote you are reflecting on. Briefly explain the scene that features the quote. Explain where the
scene falls in the story, who is in it, and who says the sentence. This could be the author, or another
person. Also, state the quote. (Focus = 2 – 4 sentences).
Thesis = State what you want your audience to believe. Here you want your audience to believe that the
sentence is relevant...
