Write a multi-paragraph essay providing (defining) your personal criteria for happiness and
exploring whether or not you have achieved happiness based on these criteria. For this writing
assignment, your response should be persuasive, thoughtful, and detailed, showing various
points that support both the criteria you have chosen to define happiness and your discussion of
how closely you currently match this definition. Logical evidence that backs up your opinion
should be used throughout.
The essay should clearly explain what you think it means to be happy and whether or not you
currently fit or match the definition you present. The first paragraph will offer an interesting
introduction that pulls the reader into your views on how happiness should be defined using
specific criteria. The following two paragraphs need to include main points that prove how and
why your criteria define happiness (one criterion per paragraph), evidence supporting these
criteria, and analysis explaining how the evidence supports each point. The next paragraph
(#4), needs to discuss whether or not your situation matches the criteria you used to define
happiness and answers the question, Based on your definition, are you currently happy? Its
okay for the answer to this question to be no, but you should have some idea of what you
might need to do to be happier, if that is one of your goals. You may be content as is, which is
great. For the purpose of this assignment, just be honest about your current state and your
thoughts on why you feel that way. You will need to provide evidence and reasoning to support
the match. Your final paragraph should conclude your thoughts on this topic in an interesting,
thoughtful way that goes beyond summary and gives your reader something to consider.
As a reminder, each paragraph should have a topic sentence that clearly states your point and
details to support/prove this point. You should have transitions between paragraphs that show
why each point appears in this order. The grading rubric below will help you develop your paper.