Often, a person's greatest strength can also be his or her greatest weakness. For example, Albert Einstein's phenomenal intellect made him a genius but also a social misfit. Wealth and fame make actors and destroy them. Argue for or against the idea that great strengths are also great weaknesses. Support your position using evidence from the lives of characters you have read about in literature. Convince other readers of your position.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Mae is torn between her home of "sun-up and pollen and blooming trees" and the promise of "far horizon." Which is better, a rich home life or a daring adventure into the unknown? Write an essay that states your position and argues for it using evidence from the novel. Show how Janie Mae's life explores this theme.

In "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," Langston Hughes shows how one person partakes in a long, proud historical heritage. All of us are connected to the past. Think of how other characters in literature demonstrate this historical connection. Write an essay that analyzes a literary character and shows how he or she is connected to a long, unbroken chain of humanity.

Thomas Newkirk argues that our minds are made for stories, our fundamental way of understanding the world around us. Each part of a story answers one of the basic 5 W's and H: characters (who?), conflict (what?), setting (when? and where?), theme (why?), and plot (how?). Choose one key part of a story and write an essay that explain to other readers why understanding this part is so important to understanding our world. Use examples from literature and current news stories.

Some works of literature create worlds that we get to visit and wish we could live in. Some create whole universes. Think of literature with settings you long to live in. What makes the place and time so inviting? Would you truly want to live in the place, or only visit it by reading? Write an essay that describes in detail some of your favorite literary settings and tells why they are your favorites. Indicate whether you would want to be a character in the literature or just a reader seeing it from the outside.

Excerpt from "Two Ways of Seeing a River"

by Mark Twain

. . . I still keep in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the sombre shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun. . . . .

In the reflection “Two Ways of Seeing a River,” (Title) Mark Twain (Author) reports of the romance and beauty that poured into his youthful eyes, noting the gleam of sunlight upon the face of the wine-dark water and the languid roll of a floating log. (Paraphrase)

In the reflection “Two Ways of Seeing a River,” (Title) Mark Twain (Author) reports of the romance and beauty that poured into his youthful eyes: “A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous.” (Quotation)

In the poem “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” (Title) Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Author) writes, “We were the first that ever burst / Into that silent sea.” (Quotation)

Excerpt from "Two Ways of Seeing a River"

by Mark Twain

. . . I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it, inwardly, in this fashion: "This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling 'boils' show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the 'break' from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark?" . . .