TAE Rough Draft

Once you have finished reading Armstrong’s essay, carefully reread the passages reproduced below. Take notes as you do so, asking yourself the following questions in particular: What question or problem is this passage exploring? What are its KEY TERMS? Its themes? Its examples? What broader implications might the ideas contained in the passage have for the text as a whole?
Once you have taken thorough notes on each passage, produce AT LEAST TWO substantive paragraphs of at least 250 words each in response to the following prompt:
What are the implications if we grant that the Brahman IS our atman?
Each paragraph should consider (and quote from) ONE of the selected passages, ANALYZING the ideas you encountered, while avoiding SUMMARY.
ANALYSIS explores and explains; it says something new. It requires that we consider implications, that we interpret the language and structure of a text. Analysis looks for patterns, dissects concepts, and explores (rather than merely presenting) evidence. It asks (and answers!) HOW and WHY
SUMMARY reports on what has already been said. It generally asks and answers WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, and WHO Summary adds nothing new to the conversation.

To focus your writing, begin by choosing one KEY TERM that you think matters for the passage, and incorporate it into your topic sentence. Some examples of KEY TERMS one encounters while reading “Homo religiosus” include atman, Brahman, Brahmodya, etc. (though you can make nearly any idea that explores and explains into a KEY TERM through emphasizing it). There may be other terms in the following passages that you do not recognize, and you should make their meanings clear before you begin your response.
PASSAGES
a. As life became more settled, people had the leisure to develop a more interior spirituality. The Indian Aryans, always in the vanguard of religious change, pioneered this trend, achieving the groundbreaking discovery that the Brahman, being itself, was also the ground of the human psyche. The transcendent was neither external nor alien to humanity, but the two were inextricably connected. This insight would become central to the religious quest in all the major traditions. In the early Upanishads, composed in the seventh century BCE, the search for this sacred Self (atman) became central to Vedic spirituality. The Upanishadic sages did not ask their disciples to “believe” this but put them through an initiation whereby they discovered it for themselves in a series of spiritual exercises that made them look at the world differently. This practically acquired knowledge brought with it a joyous liberation from fear and anxiety. (Armstrong 13)
b. Like the Brahmodya, any discussion of the atman in the Upanishads always ended in silence, the numinous acknowledgment that the ultimate reality was beyond the competence of language. Authentic religious discourse could not lead to clear, distinct, and empirically verified truth. Like the Brahman, the atman was “ungraspable.” You could define something only when you saw it as separate from yourself. But “when the Whole [Brahman] has become a person’s very self, then who is there for him to see and by what means? Who is there for me to think of and by what means?” But if you learned to “realize” the truth that your most authentic “Self was identical with Brahman,” you understood that it too was “beyond hunger and thirst, sorrow and delusion, old age and death.” You could not achieve this insight by rational logic. You had to acquire the knack of thinking outside of the ordinary “lowercase” self, and like any craft or skill, this required long, hard, dedicated practice. (Armstrong 15)
FORMAT
You must proofread carefully.
Quotations should be carefully transcribed, punctuated, and attributed. For bibliographic conventions, use MLA style. Use 1.0-inch margins on all sides, double-spacing, and twelve-point Times New Roman font. Number all pages. Your submission should have your name, the date, course information and Essay and Draft identified on top of the left hand side of the first page. A style guide is available on our course Canvas page that outlines the formatting procedures and provides an example of a properly formatted paper. Submit your work via Canvas in .doc or .docx format. Google docs and .pages files are not acceptable. Email submissions are not acceptable.
SUCCESSFUL CLOSE-READING PARAGRAPH CHECKLIST
Your close-reading paragraphs should…
Begin with a topic sentence that identifies and defines a KEY TERM from the passage. A KEY TERM is a word or phrase that explores and explains HOW something works; it is NOT an example, but an idea that helps us think more carefully about examples.
Identify and quote AT LEAST TWO textual moments that relate to your KEY TERM
Analyze your quoted moments, explaining how they help us better understand your KEY TERM
Conclude by discussing what your analysis teaches us about the passage and its complexities and by discussing how the passage relates to, furthers, and/or complicates the author’s overall argument
Your close-reading paragraphs should NOT…
Summarize the passage (i.e., report what is said without adding anything new) at length
Attempt to address EVERYTHING in the passage
Reference specific parts of the author’s essay that are not in the passage
Reference non-textual examples (i.e., relate something you find in the text to something not in it)
Rely on factual quotations (i.e., quotations that merely report facts or examples; these will feel like they could be said by anyone rather than only the author themself)