Topic for the Personal Expository Essay

How do we view "school"? What's the role of school, and what does it mean to society? You're in college taking what may be your first college-level course, so college and education more generally must be important to you. But what does it mean to you? There are all kinds of schools; even college offers many different ways of learning. What does it mean to succeed in school? What does it mean to fail?

Our first essay will be an exposition based on your personal experience with any and all kinds of education. You'll need a clear thesis sentence and strong supporting details from your own experience or that of your family or friends. In this 3-4 page paper, you might follow a traditional, five-section format, but you don't have to-and your goal for the course will be to go beyond that. You should mostly think about the purpose of your paper: why are you writing it, and what are you trying to show especially about the values people place on education?

In our class discussion, we'll consider a number of educational topics such as recent trends in community college education and reasons why people attend college. Are there different reasons to go to college? Is one reason better than another? What should an education be, and how should schools be teaching? Your goal isn't to answer these particular questions but instead to make a claim about education and learning and give strong support for your claim.