Cinemorphosis

Category: Education in the AI Age

  • The Age of Academic Anhedonia

    The Age of Academic Anhedonia

    I started teaching college writing in the 80s under the delusion that I was destined to be the David Letterman of higher education—a twenty-five-year-old ham with a chalkboard, half-professor and half–late-night stand-up. For a while, the act actually worked. A well-timed deadpan joke could mesmerize a room of eighteen-year-olds and soften their outrage when I saddled them with catastrophically ill-chosen books (Ron Rosenbaum’s Explaining Hitler—a misfire so spectacular it deserves its own apology tour). My stories carried the class, and for decades I thought the laughter was evidence of learning. If I could entertain them, I told myself, I could teach them.

    Then 2012 hit like a change in atmospheric pressure. Engagement thinned. Phones glowed. Students behaved as though they were starring in their own prestige drama, and my classroom was merely a poorly lit set. I was no longer battling boredom—I was competing with the algorithm. This was the era of screen-mediated youth, the 2010–2021 cohort raised on the oxygen of performance. Their identities were curated in Instagram grids, maintained through Snapstreaks, and measured in TikTok microfame points. The students were not apathetic; they were overstimulated. Their emotional bandwidth was spent on self-presentation, comparison loops, and the endless scoreboard of online life. They were exhausted but wired, longing for authenticity yet addicted to applause. I felt my own attention-capture lose potency, but I still recognized those students. They were distracted, yes, but still alive.

    But in 2025, we face a darker beast: the academically anhedonic student. The screen-mediated generation ran hot; this one runs cold. Around 2022, a new condition surfaced—a collapse of the internal reward system that makes learning feel good, or at least worthwhile. Years of over-curation, pandemic detachment, frictionless AI answers, and dopamine-dense apps hollowed out the very circuits that spark curiosity. This isn’t laziness; it’s a neurological shrug. These students can perform the motions—fill in a template, complete a scaffold, assemble an essay like a flat-pack bookshelf—but they move through the work like sleepwalkers. Their curiosity is muted. Their persistence is brittle. Their critical thinking arrives pre-flattened. 

    My colleagues tell me their classrooms are filled with compliant but joyless learners checking boxes on their march toward a credential. The Before-Times students wrestled with ideas. The After-Times students drift through them without contact. It breaks our hearts because the contrast is stark: what was once noisy and performative has gone silent. Academic anhedonia names that silence—a crisis not of ability, but of feeling.

  • Eating in the Real World, Not the Ideal One

    Eating in the Real World, Not the Ideal One

    Using Olga Khazan’s “Avoiding Ultra-Processed Foods Is Completely Unrealistic” as a central text and at least three additional credible sources, write a 1,700-word essay that supports, refutes, or complicates the claim that the only path to health is a diet built exclusively on whole foods—and that ultra-processed foods should be treated as the villain of modern nutrition.

    In your essay, define what counts as “whole,” “processed,” and “ultra-processed,” and analyze whether these categories are as clear—or as moral—as public discourse suggests. Examine the extent to which a modern eater can realistically avoid ultra-processed foods, and whether some of these foods can coexist with a healthy, sustainable lifestyle.

    Your argument should also address the larger forces shaping our dietary choices: economic constraints, systemic inequities, marketing, food deserts, the influence of GLP-1 medications, and the cultural narratives that determine which foods are celebrated and which are condemned. Include a counterargument-rebuttal section that engages opposing viewpoints in good faith, and conclude with an MLA-formatted Works Cited containing a minimum of four sources.

  • The Myth of the Self-Made Man

    The Myth of the Self-Made Man

    Essay Prompt

    Many commentators, institutions, and public narratives present Frederick Douglass as the quintessential “self-made man,” using his rise from slavery to argue that personal discipline and individual grit are enough to overcome oppression. Write an essay analyzing why Douglass is framed this way: What political, cultural, or ideological purposes does this simplified narrative serve, and what parts of Douglass’s life and writing does it erase?

    Then, drawing on one or more of the following—Get Out, Black Panther, The Evolution of the Black Quarterback, and ALLENIV3SON—argue how these works challenge the myth that individual effort alone is sufficient to escape a modern form of the “Sunken Place.” Use evidence from Douglass and your chosen texts, address at least one counterargument, and provide a reasoned rebuttal.

    8-Paragraph Outline

    Paragraph 1: Introduction

    Open with the cultural popularity of the “self-made man” myth and how Douglass is often drafted into that narrative. Introduce the contemporary film(s)/docuseries you will analyze. End with a thesis that presents your argument and mapping components.

    Paragraph 2: How Douglass Is Framed as the Self-Made Man

    Explain the most common public uses of Douglass—textbooks, political speeches, social media, corporate training, etc. Describe the appealing simplicity of the “rise by grit alone” narrative.

    Paragraph 3: Why This Framing Is Useful (to Whom and for What)

    Analyze the motives behind this selective portrayal. Discuss how the myth supports certain political or ideological agendas: minimizing systemic racism, shifting responsibility to individuals, or celebrating a sanitized American Dream.

    Paragraph 4: What This Narrative Omits

    Show what disappears when Douglass is turned into a solo hero: abolitionist networks, Anna Murray’s role, collective struggle, federal intervention, racial terror, psychological trauma, and Douglass’s critique of American power.

    Paragraph 5: Modern Text #1—How It Challenges the Self-Made Myth

    Explain how your first chosen film or docuseries exposes structural forces no individual can escape alone. For Get Out, this may be psychological colonization; for Evolution of the Black Quarterback, structural biases; for Black Panther, political histories; etc.

    Paragraph 6: Modern Text #2 (Optional if using more than one)

    If choosing a second text, show how it reinforces or expands the critique. If using only one film, broaden the analysis: zoom in on multiple scenes, characters, or arcs that dismantle the self-made myth.

    Paragraph 7: Counterargument and Rebuttal

    Present the strongest version of the opposing view: Douglass “proved” that grit is enough; modern examples of individual triumph exist; the Sunken Place metaphor is too pessimistic. Then rebut each point with evidence showing that exceptional individuals do not invalidate structural realities.

    Paragraph 8: Conclusion

    Show why reducing Douglass to a self-made hero is not only historically inaccurate but also misleading for understanding modern struggles. End by synthesizing your insights across Douglass and the contemporary works.

    Four Thesis Statements with Mapping Components

    Thesis 1

    Although many public narratives portray Frederick Douglass as the perfect “self-made man,” this framing ignores the collective networks that shaped his freedom, misrepresents his political message, and distorts the historical reality of slavery; by contrast, films like Get Out and The Evolution of the Black Quarterback reveal how structural forces—psychological control, institutional racism, and inherited power—make the self-made myth dangerously incomplete.

    Mapping Components:

    (1) collective networks,
    (2) misrepresented political message,
    (3) distorted historical reality,
    (4) structural forces in modern texts.

    Thesis 2

    The myth of Douglass as a solo architect of his destiny persists because it offers a convenient story about American meritocracy, but Black Panther and ALLENIV3SON expose the limits of individual effort in the face of systemic pressures, inherited trauma, and institutional barriers. Together, these works demonstrate that liberation requires community, history, and structural change—not just personal grit.

    Mapping Components:

    (1) meritocracy narrative,
    (2) systemic pressures,
    (3) inherited trauma,
    (4) institutional barriers.

    Thesis 3

    Frederick Douglass is often drafted into the self-made-man myth to support political arguments that blame individuals rather than systems, yet both Get Out and Black Panther challenge this myth by showing how racial surveillance, technological domination, and geopolitical history create Sunken Places no individual can escape alone.

    Mapping Components:

    (1) political uses of the myth,
    (2) racial surveillance,
    (3) technological domination,
    (4) geopolitical history.

    Thesis 4

    The popular image of Douglass as the ultimate self-starter survives because it offers a comforting fantasy about upward mobility, but documentaries like The Evolution of the Black Quarterback reveal that success stories are never purely individual—they emerge from networks, opportunities, and battles with deeply entrenched structures. Both the historical record and modern media refute the idea that grit alone can defeat the Sunken Place.

    Mapping Components:

    (1) fantasy of mobility,
    (2) networks and opportunity,
    (3) entrenched structures,
    (4) historical and modern refutation.

  • The Goldilocks Hybrid and Its Two Dysfunctional Siblings

    The Goldilocks Hybrid and Its Two Dysfunctional Siblings

    We offer three flavors of writing instruction at my college, each with its own personality disorder. First, there’s face-to-face: two hours, twice a week, the old-fashioned “sit in a room and pretend we’re a community” model. Then there’s hybrid: one in-person meeting supplemented by a sleek online spine. And finally, we have asynchronous online, which is technically a class but spiritually a self-guided pilgrimage through Canvas punctuated by optional Zoom sightings of your professor, like glimpsing a rare bird.

    Last place is easy: asynchronous. It’s not a class so much as a bureaucratic scavenger hunt akin to DMV traffic school. You spend your days inside Canvas like a minor character in a Russian novel, distributing grades, tracking submissions, and playing AI Police as if you’re guarding the border between Education and the Land of the Auto-Generated Essay. It’s less “learning” and more “completing modules to avoid moral decay.”

    Second place goes to face-to-face, which works fine—but let’s be honest, students do not need to see you twice a week. Once is enough to build rapport, offer real-time feedback, and remind them you’re a living mammal. Twice? Now you’re edging into overexposure. The ones who enjoy you on Tuesday will find you insufferable by Thursday.

    And then we reach the hybrid: the Goldilocks of pedagogy. One meeting a week—just enough humanity to feel legitimate, not enough to trigger claustrophobia. The college saves money on electricity and preserves precious classroom space. Students get to cosplay “the full college experience” once a week. And you, the professor, are consumed in manageable doses—like vitamin A. Beneficial in moderation. Toxic in bulk.

  • My Fifth-Decade Crisis in the Writing Classroom

    My Fifth-Decade Crisis in the Writing Classroom

    My students lean on AI the way past generations leaned on CliffsNotes and caffeine. They’re open about it, too. They send me their drafts: the human version and the AI-polished version, side by side, like before-and-after photos from a grammatical spa treatment. The upside? Their sentences are cleaner, the typos are nearly extinct, and dangling modifiers have been hunted to the brink. The downside? Engagement has flatlined. When students outsource their thinking to a bot, they sever the emotional thread to the material.

    It’s not that they’re getting dumber—they’re just developing a different flavor of intelligence, one optimized for our algorithmic future. And I know they’ll need that skill. But in the process, they grow numb to the very themes I’m trying to teach: how fashion brands and fitness influencers weaponize FOMO; how adolescent passion differs from mature purpose; how Frederick Douglass built a heroic code to claw his way out of the Sunken Place of slavery.

    This numbness shows up in the classroom. They’re present but elsewhere, half-submerged in the glow of their phones and laptops. Yesterday I screened The Evolution of the Black Quarterback—a powerful account of Black athletes who faced death threats and racist abuse to claim their place in the NFL. While these stories unfolded onscreen, my student-athletes were scrolling through sports highlights, barely glancing at the actual documentary in front of them.

    I’m not the kind of instructor who polices technology like a hall monitor. Still, I’m no longer convinced I have the power to pull students out of their world and into mine. I once believed I did. Perhaps this is my own educational Sunken Place: the realization that attention capture has shifted the center of gravity, and I’m now orbiting the edges.

    I’ve been teaching writing full-time since the 1980s. For decades, I believed I could craft lessons—and a persona—that made an impact. Now, in my fifth decade, I’m not sure I can say that with the same certainty. The ground has moved, and I’m still learning how to stand on it.

  • Essay Prompt: Innovation, Identity, and the Meaning of “Authentic” Food

    Essay Prompt: Innovation, Identity, and the Meaning of “Authentic” Food

    In Chef’s Table: Pizza, Ann Kim rebuilds her life after a failed acting career by reinventing pizza through the lens of her Korean-American identity. Her dishes fold together memory, rebellion, shame, pride, and the complicated love between immigrant parents and their children. Yet the moment she alters traditional recipes or refuses rigid cultural expectations, she steps into a debate that surrounds many immigrant chefs:
    Does innovation honor one’s heritage—or distort it?

    In this 1,700-word argumentative essay, you will explore that tension by comparing Ann Kim’s story with the themes found in Ugly Delicious (Season 1, “Tacos”), selected episodes of The Taco Chronicles, Gustavo Arellano’s “Let White People Appropriate Mexican Food,” and Kelley Kwok’s “‘Not Real Chinese’: Why American Chinese Food Deserves Our Respect.” Your goal is to craft an argument that responds to the following question:

    When immigrant chefs remix, adapt, or modernize traditional dishes, are they betraying cultural authenticity—or creating a new form of belonging that honors their past in a more personal way?

    To answer this question, analyze how each show or essay portrays the cultural meaning of food—its connection to heritage, shame, pride, memory, and the immigrant experience. Pay close attention to visual rhetoric (music, tone, pacing, imagery), and consider how these choices shape our sense of what counts as “authentic.”

    Include at least two scholarly secondary sources on food studies, cultural identity, or immigrant narratives to deepen your analysis. These sources should help you place the shows and essays within broader academic conversations about authenticity, assimilation, and innovation.

    Your essay must include a counterargument-rebuttal section. Address the view that innovation leads to “tourist food” or watered-down Americanization, and explain whether these cases justify a purist stance toward food traditions—or whether purity itself is an illusion shaped by nostalgia, nationalism, or fear of cultural loss.

    Ultimately, your task is to show how food becomes a form of storytelling—and to argue whether storytelling requires faithful preservation, bold revision, or something in between.

  • Rising From the Sunken Place: Heroism, History, and the Evolution of the Black Quarterback

    Rising From the Sunken Place: Heroism, History, and the Evolution of the Black Quarterback

    Essay Prompt: 

    Drawing on Jordan Peele’s concept of the Sunken Place in Get Out, write a 1,700-word essay examining the heroic effort required not only to lift oneself out of the Sunken Place, but to help others rise as well—an arc vividly captured in the three-part docuseries The Evolution of the Black Quarterback. What does it mean for Black quarterbacks to break the race barrier in the NFL? What forces tried to hold them back, and how do these forces echo the Sunken Place? Consider also the story of Wilbur Dungy—Tony Dungy’s father—who served as a war hero only to return home to the indignities of Jim Crow. How did his dignity, endurance, and moral clarity shape his son’s rise as both an athlete and a coach?

    Your essay will be divided into two major sections.

    Part I (Four Paragraphs): Define the Sunken Place
     Write a four-paragraph definition of the Sunken Place, with each paragraph offering a different lens:

    1. The Sunken Place as depicted in Get Out
    2. The Sunken Place through the writings of Frederick Douglass
    3. The Sunken Place as represented in the Jim Crow Museum, curated by David Pilgrim
    4. The Sunken Place as reflected in The Evolution of the Black Quarterback

    Each paragraph should show how the Sunken Place functions as a metaphor for psychological confinement, social domination, and the struggle for agency.

    Part II (Four Paragraphs): Rising From the Sunken Place
     After your definition section, pivot to your thesis. Explain how early Black quarterbacks in the NFL rose from the Sunken Place and built a legacy that opened doors for future generations. In four paragraphs, analyze their courage and composure in the face of rejection, demoralization, racist taunts, structural exclusion, and even death threats. Show how their resilience and excellence expanded the possibilities for Black athletes who followed.

    Conclusion:
     Close by addressing the broader implications. What life lessons can we draw from these trailblazing quarterbacks? How does their story speak to endurance, leadership, and the ongoing work of lifting others out of the Sunken Places they confront?

    Include a Works Cited page in MLA format with at least four sources.

  • Mature Passion vs. Adolescent Passion: A Contrast Essay on Work, Identity, and the Myth of “Follow Your Bliss”

    Mature Passion vs. Adolescent Passion: A Contrast Essay on Work, Identity, and the Myth of “Follow Your Bliss”

    For years, my freshman composition students wrote an argumentative essay critiquing Cal Newport’s “Passion Hypothesis”—the breezy mantra that if you follow your bliss, success will obediently fall into line. Newport dismantles this fantasy with blunt clarity. Most people don’t actually know what their passion is. Some “passions” amount to grounded purpose, while others are the daydreams of adolescence dressed up as destiny. And, he argues, genuine passion usually blooms only after someone has spent thousands of hours developing real skill and mastery. In that light, personality tests and “job alignment” quizzes reveal almost nothing. What matters, Newport insists, is work ethic and character—qualities that let people seize opportunity when it finally cracks open.

    My dilemma is that the assignment itself lacks controversy. Newport’s critique is sensible, and few students push back. Without real tension, the essay drifts: there’s no argument to wrestle into shape.

    Still, I don’t want to abandon the topic. College freshmen should confront the uncomfortable gap between the passions they romanticize and the careers the job market will actually reward.

    Maybe the solution is to reframe the assignment entirely. Instead of forcing an argument where none exists, the students could write a contrast essay. They could define mature passion and adolescent passion in clean, single-sentence terms; explain their defining traits; and examine real people who embody each version. In that format, the assignment keeps its intellectual weight without pretending there’s a genuine debate where there isn’t one.

    With that in mind, here is the essay prompt rewritten as a contrast, not an argument: 

    Essay Prompt (Approx. 1,700 Words)
    Mature Passion vs. Adolescent Passion: A Contrast Essay on Work, Identity, and the Myth of “Follow Your Bliss”

    College students are often surrounded by a cultural chorus that sings the same reassuring tune: Follow your passion, and everything else will fall into place. This idea appears in commencement speeches, self-help books, career counseling pamphlets, and the nebulous motivational fog of social media. It is a comforting narrative, but also a suspiciously easy one. The message promises agency without sacrifice, destiny without drudgery, and meaning without the slow grind of real development. In other words, it encourages students to build an entire life on a slogan that collapses under scrutiny.

    Computer scientist and writer Cal Newport identifies this seductive slogan as “The Passion Hypothesis.” The claim is simple: find your bliss and success will obediently trail behind. For years, my freshman composition students wrote argumentative essays challenging Newport’s critique of this idea. Newport’s counterargument has a tough, pragmatic edge: passion is not a pre-made, glowing inner truth waiting to be discovered; it is more often the result of discipline, time, and mastery. According to Newport, most people don’t actually know what their passion is. Even worse, many confuse fleeting fantasies with purpose. A true passion—something worth building a professional life around—is rarely the glamorous daydream that clicks instantly into place. Instead, it emerges slowly, often after someone has invested thousands of hours acquiring a deep skill set. For Newport, personality tests and job-alignment quizzes are little more than parlor tricks compared to the importance of developing work ethic, character, resilience, and the kind of competence that opens doors.

    The problem I’ve encountered over the years is that Newport’s argument makes so much sense that students rarely disagree with it. And when no one disagrees, an argumentative essay falls flat. There’s no tension for students to wrestle with, no friction to sharpen their analysis. The assignment, while intellectually rich, has begun to lose its edge.

    Still, I don’t want to abandon the topic altogether. College freshmen deserve—perhaps even need—to examine the gap between the passion narratives they’ve absorbed and the economic realities that shape their opportunities. They should reflect on the difference between the fantasies they carried through adolescence and the work they will need to undertake in adulthood. They need a clearer lens for distinguishing between a passion that grows through discipline and a passion that evaporates under pressure. This is where reframing the assignment can restore its power.

    Instead of asking students to argue for or against Newport’s position—an argument too one-sided to yield strong papers—this assignment will invite students to write a contrast essay. Your job will be to contrast two sharply different types of passion: mature passion and adolescent passion. These are not mere labels; they are categories that reflect deeper psychological, emotional, and developmental differences. Understanding these differences can help you think more clearly about your own aspirations, your academic path, and the professional life you hope to build.

    This contrast essay will ask you to think carefully, define your terms clearly, and support your analysis with real-world examples. It will encourage you to replace slogans with insight, and daydreams with reflective evaluation. Instead of forcing a debate where there isn’t one, you will trace a meaningful distinction—one with lifelong implications.

    Your Task

    Write a 1,700-word contrast essay in which you develop a clear, thoughtful distinction between mature passion and adolescent passion. You will define each term, describe their key characteristics, and analyze concrete examples of individuals—people you know personally, public figures, fictional characters, or even different versions of yourself—who embody each type of passion.

    Your essay should demonstrate that you understand the essential difference between a passion grounded in discipline, purpose, and skill development, and a passion rooted in excitement, fantasy, and wishful thinking. Use these distinctions to help your reader understand how one form of passion can support a meaningful career, while the other may hinder or distort it.

    What Is Mature Passion?

    Before writing, consider the traits that define mature passion. Mature passion is not a lightning bolt. It grows slowly and often quietly. It is less about being “meant” for something and more about discovering meaning through practice. A person with a mature passion may not start with enthusiasm; the enthusiasm develops after they become good at something, after they see how their abilities create opportunities for contribution, competence, or creativity. Mature passion aligns with Newport’s claim that passion is cultivated rather than discovered.

    Think about the people in your life who have developed expertise through patience and consistency. Maybe you know someone who didn’t fall in love with their field immediately, but grew into it over time. Perhaps a family member or mentor who built a career the way a craftsman builds a table—piece by piece, with steady hands and commitment. Consider athletes, musicians, engineers, business owners, teachers, or healthcare workers who have spent years refining their craft. What distinguishes their passion from a passing interest?

    Reflect also on the emotional maturity required to handle setbacks. Mature passion can survive boredom, frustration, or failure. It doesn’t disappear when the work becomes difficult. It may even grow stronger because of difficulty.

    What Is Adolescent Passion?

    Adolescent passion, by contrast, often thrives on excitement but collapses under pressure. It tends to be immediate, romanticized, and untested. It is fueled by fantasy rather than process. Someone with adolescent passion often imagines the rewards—the fame, the lifestyle, the applause—while ignoring or minimizing the work necessary to get there. It’s not that adolescent passion is childish; it’s simply undeveloped. It has not yet been made real by discipline.

    Consider people you’ve known who bounce from one dream to another: “I want to be a YouTuber,” “I want to be a professional gamer,” “I want to be a neurosurgeon,” “I want to start a clothing brand,” “I want to be a film director,” “I want to be a crypto millionaire.” The dreams are bold, but the follow-through is thin. Adolescent passion tends to burn bright but briefly. The person abandons the dream as soon as boredom or difficulty appears.

    Adolescent passion also thrives on external validation. It may be driven by trends, social media influencers, or the desire to appear impressive rather than the desire to master a craft. It can feel powerful, but it is fragile.

    Your Definitions

    Your essay must begin with clean, single-sentence definitions of each type of passion. These definitions should be clear enough that a stranger could read them and instantly understand the distinction. Avoid vague, poetic language. Your definitions should operate like the thesis of a dictionary entry: precise, purposeful, and unfuzzy.

    Here is a structural guideline you may use:

    1. Definition of mature passion (one sentence)
    2. Definition of adolescent passion (one sentence)
    3. A brief explanation of why distinguishing between the two is essential for students preparing to enter the professional world.

    Your Analysis

    Once you define your terms, you will devote the body of your essay to contrasting the two forms of passion in depth. Use the following guiding questions to develop your paragraphs. You do not need to answer them in order, nor do you need to answer every single one, but they should spark lines of exploration:

    • How does mature passion develop over time?
    • How does adolescent passion behave when it meets difficulty or boredom?
    • What emotional traits support mature passion—patience, resilience, humility, adaptability?
    • Which emotional traits undermine adolescent passion—impulsiveness, insecurity, fantasy, impatience?
    • How do people with each type of passion respond to setbacks?
    • How do they talk about their goals?
    • How do they make decisions?
    • How do they manage their time?
    • What role do mentors, teachers, or workplaces play in shaping each type of passion?
    • Which form of passion leads to long-term growth, responsibility, and contribution?
    • Which form of passion tends to collapse into disappointment, cynicism, or constant reinvention?

    As you write, avoid turning the essay into a list. Instead, build a sustained contrast. Your goal is to make the reader feel the difference—not just understand it intellectually. The contrast should reveal how these two forms of passion shape lives differently.

    Your Examples

    You must include examples of real people or fictional characters who illustrate each type of passion. The examples should help clarify your distinctions. Good examples include:

    • A relative who developed a mature passion through steady work
    • A friend who chased an adolescent passion that fizzled
    • A public figure whose career reflects mature passion (e.g., a musician who refined their craft over decades, not someone who went viral once)
    • A celebrity or influencer whose adolescent passion flared brightly but collapsed quickly
    • A fictional character who embodies either type of passion
    • A version of yourself at a different stage of life—past, present, or imagined future

    The examples should serve your analysis rather than distract from it. Explain how each example illustrates the traits you have identified. Don’t simply tell a story. Instead, use the example to deepen the reader’s understanding of the contrast.

    Your Purpose

    This essay is not merely an academic exercise. It is a chance to examine your assumptions about what a meaningful life requires. The cultural advice to “follow your bliss” is too easy, too vague, too romantic. If you take it literally, it may mislead you. But if you learn to distinguish between adolescent passion and mature passion, you gain a better sense of how to direct your energy in college and beyond. You gain a more realistic view of what it means to grow into competence, purpose, and self-respect.

    What you write here may influence the decisions you make in the next few years—your major, your work ethic, your expectations, and the way you evaluate opportunities. You are not simply contrasting two abstract ideas; you are constructing a clearer map of your future.

    Your Requirements

    Your final paper must:

    • Be approximately 1,700 words
     • Include single-sentence definitions of mature passion and adolescent passion
    • Develop at least five distinguishing characteristics for each type of passion
    • Use specific, concrete examples of individuals who represent each type
    • Maintain a clear contrast throughout
    • Demonstrate careful reasoning and a strong writing voice
    • Be revised for clarity, precision, and logical flow

    The Goal

    By the end of this essay, your reader should understand not only the surface-level difference between mature passion and adolescent passion, but the deeper psychological and practical implications of aligning oneself with one or the other. You are writing to illuminate—not to preach, lecture, or scold. Your job is to show your reader how these two kinds of passion operate in real life and what is at stake in choosing one path over the other.

    If you execute this well, you won’t merely be writing a contrast essay. You’ll be developing the kind of reflective, disciplined judgment that Newport argues is the true foundation of a meaningful and successful life.

    BUILDING BLOCK 1: Definitional Paragraph
     Goal: Produce clear, single-sentence definitions of mature passion and adolescent passion, then expand those definitions into a short paragraph that clarifies the stakes of the distinction.

    Instructions:
     Write a paragraph in which you:

    1. Create a one-sentence definition of mature passion.
    2. Create a one-sentence definition of adolescent passion.
    3. Follow those definitions with 4–6 sentences explaining why distinguishing between the two matters for college students facing decisions about majors, careers, and long-term goals.
    4. Include at least one observation drawn from your lived experience—something you have seen in yourself, your peers, or your family.

    Purpose:
     This paragraph becomes the opening anchor of your essay. It establishes the core concepts and clarifies why the reader should care about the contrast.

    BUILDING BLOCK 2: Characteristics and Analysis Paragraph
     Goal: Identify and analyze the defining traits of each type of passion.

    Instructions:
     In a detailed paragraph (8–10 sentences):

    1. Identify three defining characteristics of mature passion (examples: resilience, patience, incremental skill-building).
    2. Identify three defining characteristics of adolescent passion (examples: fantasy-driven goals, quick burnout, validation-seeking).
    3. For each pair of characteristics (one mature, one adolescent), show how they contrast in real-life behavior—how they handle setbacks, boredom, or responsibility.
    4. Use brief mini-examples (1–2 sentences at most) to illustrate the contrast.

    Purpose:
     This paragraph provides the conceptual foundation of your essay’s body section. You’re defining the landscape before exploring individual case studies.

    BUILDING BLOCK 3: Case Study Paragraph
     Goal: Analyze a real person (or fictional character) who embodies either mature passion or adolescent passion.

    Instructions:
     Choose one person—a friend, family member, public figure, or fictional character—and write an 8–12 sentence paragraph in which you:

    1. Identify whether the person represents mature or adolescent passion.
    2. Describe a specific moment or pattern from their life that reveals their type of passion.
    3. Explain how their habits, decisions, setbacks, and motivations illustrate the characteristics you identified in Building Block 2.
    4. Offer one brief evaluative reflection on what students can learn from this example, either as a model to follow or a cautionary tale.

    Purpose:
     This paragraph becomes one of your essay’s body examples—your most vivid evidence for how passion operates in real life.

  • Brushing His Teeth in Purgatory

    Brushing His Teeth in Purgatory

    Yesterday, I ran into B—a colleague and friend of thirty years—in the faculty bathroom. He stood at the sink, looking tiny in an oversized blue oxford and baggy black pleated slacks, brushing his teeth with grim determination, the way a soldier might polish his boots before a hopeless battle. His reflection wore a bloodhound’s face: drooping eyes, sagging mouth, the look of someone who’d run out of surprises.

    We exchanged small talk about our students, about AI, about how much the classroom had changed. His voice was thin, almost apologetic.
    “They’ve checked out,” he said. “They use AI so much, they’ve just… checked out.”

    I tried to commiserate, mentioning how quickly the culture had shifted since the first wave of ChatGPT essays three years ago. But he didn’t answer. He rinsed, spat, and walked out without another word—already halfway gone.

    It isn’t just B. My younger colleagues say the same thing. Even my wife, who teaches writing in middle school, tells me her students have that same vacant look. Everyone seems ghosted by their own profession, still performing the motions of care while quietly surrendering.

    The image that won’t leave me is B—graying, stooped, and haloed in the pitiless glow of the faculty bathroom’s fluorescent lights—scrubbing his molars like an inmate serving life. He looked less like a man starting his day than one serving time in it, counting down to a retirement that recedes faster than his gumline.

  • Bad But Worth It? De-skilling in the Age of AI (college essay prompt)

    Bad But Worth It? De-skilling in the Age of AI (college essay prompt)

    AI is now deeply embedded in business, the arts, and education. We use it to write, edit, translate, summarize, and brainstorm. This raises a central question: when does AI meaningfully extend our abilities, and when does it quietly erode them?

    In “The Age of De-Skilling,” Kwame Anthony Appiah argues that not all de-skilling is equal. Some forms are corrosive and hollow us out; some are “bad but worth it” because the benefits outweigh the loss; some are so destructive that no benefit can redeem them. In that framework, AI becomes most interesting when we talk about strategic de-skilling: deliberately off-loading certain tasks to machines so we can focus on deeper, higher-level work.

    Write a 1,700-word argumentative essay in which you defend, refute, or complicate the claim that not all dependence on AI is harmful. Take a clear position on whether AI can function as a “bad but worth it” form of de-skilling that frees us for more meaningful thinking—or whether, in practice, it mostly dulls our edge and trains us into passivity.

    Your essay must:

    • Engage directly with Appiah’s concepts of corrosive vs. “bad but worth it” de-skilling.
    • Distinguish between lazy dependence on AI and deliberate collaboration with it.
    • Include a counterargument–rebuttal section that uses at least one example of what we might call Ozempification—people becoming less agents and more “users” of systems. You may draw this example from one or more of the following Black Mirror episodes: “Joan Is Awful,” “Nosedive,” or “Smithereens.”
    • Use at least three sources in MLA format, including Appiah and at least one Black Mirror episode.

    For your supporting paragraphs, you might consider:

    • Cognitive off-loading as optimization
    • Human–AI collaboration in creative or academic work
    • Ethical limits of automation
    • How AI is redefining what counts as “skill”

    Your goal is to show nuanced critical thinking about AI’s role in human skill development. Don’t just declare AI good or bad; use Appiah’s framework to examine when AI’s shortcuts lead to degradation—and when, if used wisely, they might lead to liberation.

    3 building-block paragraph assignments

    1. Concept Paragraph: Explaining Appiah’s De-Skilling Framework

    Assignment:
     Write one well-developed paragraph (8–10 sentences) in which you explain Kwame Anthony Appiah’s distinctions among corrosive de-skilling, “bad but worth it” de-skilling, and de-skilling that is so destructive no benefit can justify it.

    • Use at least one short, embedded quotation from Appiah.
    • Paraphrase his ideas in your own words and clarify the differences between the three categories.
    • End the paragraph by briefly suggesting how AI might fit into one of these categories (without fully arguing your position yet).

    Your goal is to show that you understand Appiah’s framework clearly enough to use it later as the backbone of an argument.

    2. Definition Paragraph: Lazy Dependence vs. Deliberate Collaboration

    Assignment:
     Write one paragraph in which you define and contrast lazy dependence on AI and deliberate collaboration with AI in your own words.

    • Begin with a clear topic sentence that sets up the contrast.
    • Give at least one concrete example of “lazy dependence” (for instance, using AI to dodge thinking, reading, or drafting altogether).
    • Give at least one concrete example of “deliberate collaboration” (for instance, using AI to brainstorm options, check clarity, or off-load repetitive tasks while you still make the key decisions).
    • End the paragraph with a sentence explaining which of these two modes you think is more common among students right now—and why.

    This paragraph will later function as a “conceptual lens” for your body paragraphs.

    3. Counterargument Paragraph: Ozempification and Black Mirror

    Assignment:
     After watching one of the assigned Black Mirror episodes (“Joan Is Awful,” “Nosedive,” or “Smithereens”), write one counterargument paragraph that challenges the optimistic idea of “strategic de-skilling.”

    • Briefly describe a key moment or character from the episode that illustrates Ozempification—a person becoming more of a “user” of a system than an agent of their own life.
    • Explain how this example suggests that dependence on powerful systems (platforms, algorithms, or AI-like tools) can erode self-agency and critical thinking rather than free us.
    • End by posing a difficult question your eventual essay will need to answer—for example: If it’s so easy to slide from strategic use to dependence, can we really trust ourselves with AI?

    Later, you’ll rebut this paragraph in the full essay, but here your job is to make the counterargument as strong and persuasive as you can.