The three long essays in this course provide a 60% of your final grade, and they offer you your best opportunity to develop and present your ideas about the material that we are studying.  Therefore, it is important to devote a good deal of time and effort to reading and understanding the question, developing a response, collecting relevant evidence, and presenting your ideas in a clear and convincing manner.  You should go through several drafts, ideally letting the paper sit for a day or so in between.     Below you will find the questions on which you are write and some suggestions for maximizing the results of your labor. How Should You Go About Reading the Essay Questions (with an example of how two questions were graded) Information about Essays from Previous Semesters that Might Prove Useful