The Value of Life Essay: Outline and First Draft 

**DUE: Monday, March 12, 2018***

ASSIGNMENT:
Use the following outline to help you structure the writing for the first draft of your Value of Life
paper. You may either:
1. Write your paper WITHIN the outline.
-OR-
2. Write your paper BELOW the outline.

TIPS:
● Remember to use the pre-writing activities to help you construct your paper. ​Click here
to review the essay prompt and pre-writing activities. See your personal Google
Classroom copy for details that you have developed.
● Please remember to limit direct quotes. Rely more heavily on summaries and paraphrased
statements (although remember these also must be cited). You should include between ​3-5
direct quotations in a paper of this size.
● Use ​APA format​ for this paper. Be sure to include parenthetical citations whenever you provide
text evidence/examples to support your arguments (cite your sources whether your material is
quoted OR summarized/paraphrased). Additionally, you will need to add a References page at
the end of your paper.
● Your paper will be graded using the EAP/EPT rubric developed by CSU. Click ​here​ to see the
full rubric. Click ​here​ to review the condensed version.
● Review the ​sample student essays​ to evaluate what TO do and what NOT to do in your paper.
Be sure to read the detailed feedback regarding each essay.

OUTLINE/FIRST DRAFT:
I. Introduction
How should we value the life of a person? Is it through the money they have to their name or
the way they have impacted the lives of those who knew them? Some may argue that the value of our
lives come from the money, reputation and things we own. Many may also argue that sometimes that
there is no real value to life. Others argue that our lives should be valued and measured by the
happiness, love, respect and the impacts on other. One’s value should be determined by effort they put
into the good moments and characteristics of who they are into their lives rather than let the negative
events hinder the outlook on their lives because the negative experiences we go through do not define
our life’s value.

II. Body #1
Life is defined by the love for our passions in life. In the article ​Roger Ebert: The Essential
Man​ we see how Ebert loved to critiqued movie. One can see the time and effort he put into his
profession and how much he truly loves the excitement of the whole process. An example of
this is when the article states, “ It’s a quirky, complex, beautiful little film, and Ebert loves
it. He radiates kid joy. Throughout the screening, he takes excited notes… Ebert scribbles
constantly, his pen digging into page after page, and then he tears the pages out of his notebook
 and drops them to the floor around him. Maybe twenty or thirty times, the sound of paper being
torn from a spiral rises from the aisle seat in the last row.” Through this you can see the joy he
gets from seeing movies and being able to articulate the way he interprets the movies he
critiques. The way he can easily write pages after pages of notes shows the reader how
passionately he feels about his career and the way he can endlessly express himself through his
words. When we live with a purpose and we love that purpose that can give us a way to value
one's life.
II. Body #2
Some may argue that there is no value to life. That our hardships are the only define our life
and because of those hardships we have no worth. In ​Hamlet’s Soliloquy​ Hamlet states, “To be,
or not to be—that is the question:/Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer/The slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune/Or to take arms against a sea of troubles/And by opposing end
them.” With this you can see that through the point of view Hamlet our hardships make us
question the worth of our lives. If our hardships are all we use to define our live then we begin
to put a value to the lives we live based off a negative outlook. When in a completely
pessimistic mindset people tend to view all aspects of their lives, and even their own lives, as
worth less.

III. Body #3
When looking at a more optimistic point of view we can see that the value of our lives come from
happiness. Whether it be thought the happiness we bring to others or the happiness we bring to
ourselves. Roger Ebert stated, “I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have
done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is
about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where
all crime starts.” Ebert never stopped to continue to write even after he lost his physical voice along
with so many other bodily functions we take for granted. He refused to stop writing and continued to
write till his passing. His belief that his writings made others happy is what kept him going. He
believed that making others happy with our passions was the best way to bring other and ourselves
happy and though that we can properly give our lives value.
IV. Body #4
When putting a value to a human life is it wrong to value the person's life with money. In the article
What is The Value of a Human Life it questions just that. The article states, “After Sept. 11, I
confronted the challenge of placing a value on human life by calculating different amounts of
compensation for each and every victim.” With this you can see how hard it was for one person to
determine the value of a person's life purely in money. How do we as people determine the amount of
money our families get when we pass.
V. Conclusion
A. Hook (use parallel structure)
B. Restate your thesis in a different way - reiterate your stance regarding the value of life.
C. Restate why or how this stance is exemplified in the texts you’ve examined in your
essay.
D. Write concluding sentences about the importance of your topic to life (Why should
people care? Why is this way of valuing life significant or important?) End with pathos.