Exercises — Week 25: Week 25 — Personal Essay: Origins and Form (Montaigne tradition, Bacon)
2 hands-on tasks. Do them in order; each one feeds the Canvas item it names.
30 min · analysis
1. Montaigne vs. Bacon Analysis
- Read one excerpt from Montaigne's 'Of Experience' (public domain) and one from Bacon's 'Of Studies' (public domain).
- Write one analytical paragraph for each: identify the essay's central subject, describe how the writer moves through it (exploratory/digressive or aphoristic/prescriptive), and identify one specific sentence that best represents the writer's relationship to certainty.
- Do not summarize — analyze structure and voice. Quote at least one phrase per paragraph.
Turn in / bring: Two analytical paragraphs, each with one quoted sentence and a sentence explaining what it reveals about the writer's relationship to certainty.
25 min · written
2. Personal Essay Opening
- Write an opening paragraph (100–130 words) for a personal essay about one specific subject you have spent time thinking about without resolving.
- Do not argue a thesis. Establish a question, a tension, or an observation that the essay will explore without immediately resolving.
- End the paragraph with the reader wanting to know where the thinking will go.
- After writing, add one sentence identifying the question or tension you are holding open.
Turn in / bring: Opening paragraph with a post-draft note identifying the unresolved question or tension. This companion enhances — it does not replace — Mr. Gray's instruction.