Common Reading 2018: Summer Assignment [required]

To help us get to know you better, we are asking you to write a true story—a personal tale!—of failure and resilience.

Your story will be collected in Perspectives or Global Business Perspectives on the first day you meet for class. Keep in mind that the assignment will help introduce you to your instructor. In your story, you could include some or all of the following: where you are from, your family, your interests, circumstances or events that have influenced who you are, what matters to you personally or academically.

Importantly, in your story, you should draw connections between your experience(s) and at least two texts you have read in Common Reading: Perspectives on Resilience. You might draw inspiration from social scientist Jennifer Doty’s article on resilience in immigrant families. Connect with students in Jessica Bennett’s article on “failure” as a matter of course at college. Find yourself in the young Black men interviewed by sociologist Derrick R. Brooms. Think about how failure can make you stronger through mindfulness, as taught by psychiatrist Holly B. Rogers. Look to baseball star Cal Ripken’s stories about losing game after game the year his father was fired from the Orioles.

Write in your own voice. Even though this is an academic assignment, your tone should be closer to a personal essay than a formal essay. This is our chance to hear what you think about Susquehanna University’s 2018-2019 theme of "resilience." The assignment should be typed, double-spaced, and 2-3 pages long. You do not need a works cited page, but as you will be paraphrasing (or quoting directly) from the book, please put last names of authors and page numbers in parentheses whenever referencing them in your story. Here’s an example of how to do this: To sum up what I’ve been saying, “I learned that when life pulls you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface, and breathe again” (Sandberg, 34).