Assignment Prompt How can dreams and aspirations positively or negatively affect people’s lives and relationships? What qualities make a dream worth pursuing? How do people decide when a dream is unrealistic, out of reach, or even harmful? Think about the selections in this unit. Choose two selections from the unit and write an informative essay that analyzes the impact of dreams and aspirations on the lives and relationships of the people and characters in these texts. Along with information from the selections, include research from at least three other credible print and digital sources to support your ideas. Your informative essay should include: an introduction that features a clear thesis statement. body paragraphs that contain a thorough analysis as well as relevant evidence in support of your thesis. cited research from at least three credible print and digital sources that support your ideas. a concluding paragraph that effectively wraps up the essay and summarizes support for your thesis statement Introduction to Informative/Explanatory Writing: Informative/explanatory writing explains, compares and contrasts, describes, and informs. One purpose of informative writing is to convey accurate information to readers. In addition, informative writing can serve to increase readers’ knowledge of a subject, help readers better understand the steps involved in a process, and enhance their comprehension of a specific concept. Examples of informative writing include scientific studies, analytical essays and reports, research papers, newspaper articles, and nonfiction texts. Strong informative writing introduces a main idea, often in the form of a thesis statement, and develops the main idea with well-chosen and relevant facts, details, quotations, or other examples. The writing stays focused on the main idea by using transition words to help create flow and make connections among complex ideas and supporting details. Though informative writing draws a conclusion based on the facts and information presented, the writing is unbiased, meaning that the writer does not state his or her own opinion. Finally, informative writing often incorporates strong, accurate outside research to help make and support ideas and claims. Outside research is a valuable writing element that is essential to the development of a topic. Research enables writers to not only discover and confirm facts, but to draw new conclusions. Sources used in research must be formally cited—that is, referenced and identified using specific guidelines. The features of informative/explanatory writing include: a clear and logical organizational structure an introduction with a clear thesis statement supporting details, including facts, definitions, quotations, and examples drawn from reliable sources clear and varied transitions to connect ideas precise language and domain-specific (specialized) vocabulary a formal and objective tone citations of sources a concluding statement that supports the thesis Additional information Be sure to review the rubric for this assignment and the informative sample essay before you begin your paper. Since The Joy Luck Club and Of Mice and Men are used in the example informative paper, you cannot use these stories in your paper. Click here for a template you can use to help you format your paper using MLA.