Topic: Does the experience of reading and studying literature have benefits to readers? Why or why not?

In this essay, you will be responding to the above question. You are to use your own experiences in building your argument. Your essay is to have three reasons to support your claim (YES the experience of reading and studying literature has benefits to readers or NO it does not).

Your reasons should be personal to you and your experiences with studying literature. You do not need to divulge details of your life that you are uncomfortable with sharing, but this is a personal essay and I expect it to feel unique to you as a person. Handing in a generic essay that anyone could have written will result in a loss of points.

Your essay must have the standard requirements of any essay:

• An introduction that includes a hook and thesis statement
• At least three body paragraphs with corresponding topic sentences
• A conclusion

In addition to these elements, you must also utilize a proper academic tone in your essay as well as appropriate spelling and grammar.

This is the only essay in this class where you will be permitted to use the personal pronouns I, me, my, etc.

You are to utilize one outside source to support your thesis and follow proper academic guidelines when selecting this source (no personal blogs, .com websites, or wikipedia/wikipedia-like websites). I suggest using ProQuest or one of the other CSM databases to select your source. This source must be presented in a Works Cited page following MLA guidelines.

This paper must be formatted according to the syllabus guidelines.