Core 2: The Happiness Project (10% of your Course Grade)

Overview: You will spend the next few weeks researching happiness. Through the process you will:

  • Think about your own personal happiness and the ideas and concepts presented in Happy such as: FLOW, intentional behavior, genetic set point, circumstances, novelty, pleasure/pain, hedonic adaptation/treadmill, community, gratitude, intrinsic and extrinsic goals, cooperation and competition, etc.
  • Analyze articles/book excerpts that make claims about how one can achieve happiness using the article research charts and think about how they connect
  • Watch a documentary and Ted.com talks related to the study of happiness
  • Engage in discussions about happiness and related readings
  • Create a final writing that ARGUES a claim about a happiness formula and supports it with synthesized research from this unit in an organized and interesting writing.
  • Write a works cited/bibliography that includes research you cite in your product

BASED on the RESEARCH (readings and videos we complete in class) in combination with your opinion, and if you choose some outside research, you will choose one of the following prompts:

  1. Argue a formula a specific audience (you pick- and must state it in your paper) should follow to be happy. Create a claim and support that claim using the researched articles and videos.
  2. Argue a formula for your own happiness. Create a claim and support that claim using the researched articles and videos.

You must meet the following guidelines in addition to the rubric:

  1. An original and creative title: Make this something that captures your argument- do not call it “Happiness Project.”
  2. A clearly stated claim about happiness that answers one of the two prompts above: This must make an assertion about happiness and give reason for your argument. Highlight or make the claim BOLD.
  3. Main points that discuss some of the KEY terms/areas highlighted in the documentary and research. It helps to synthesizes information from different sources together.
  4. Examples which may include examples of people who experience happiness or people who are NOT happy or examples from your own life or even examples from Brave New World or Macbeth.
  5. Quality and stylistic writing (this is an English core) following the guidelines of balanced argument- You must avoid FALLACIES.
  6. FOUR researchedsources minimum: Chosen from what we viewed/read for class. These sources should be used in new and interesting ways- it should not feel like your paper just plagiarizes ideas- you are applying the research to your ideas about happiness and the formula you come up with for yourself or for a specific group.
  7. These MUST be directly quoted/cited within the product.
  8. Two may be video resources, but two MUST be articles and readings.
  9. You will be handing in your final FOUR or MORE Article Research Charts with your final product.
  10. When you include cited/quoted evidence you should build your ethos by giving information about what it is from (article, speech,etc.) and who wrote it and why we should care.
  11. After the evidence, you must include what you want the reader/viewer to understand about it as it relates to your idea of happiness.
  12. You may include other sources beyond the four class sources, but you need four from this unit.
  13. Correct in-text citations:
  14. Refer directly to them with title and author before you quote them- In the article, “In Praise of a Snail’s Pace” by Ellen Goodman.”
  15. Give an in-text citation following this example format (MLA) after you quote “Happiness has traditionally been considered an elusive and evanescent thing” (Brooks) unless you mention the author within your writing like in 7a.
  16. Works Cited Page:You will hand in a hard copy works cited page at the end of your writing(you may use Noodle Tools to create this, but make sure you understand the information needed to complete the fields required)

What will you read/view for research choices? We will use Happy, a documentary directed by Roko Belic, as the framework for our research and we continue to think about the ideas presented there as we research various other sources. The list below contains many of the sources we will view or read- some may be added or deleted depending on time. Some of these sources will be read for homework, some in class and some we will view together. Sometimes, you will be asked to fill in notes or answer questions and sometimes you will be asked to complete other activities or charts. It is important that you do the work along the way so that when we get to the drafting of your paper, you are prepared. You will be watching, reading, thinking and analyzing these works and working through how you can synthesize this information to support a claim you will make about happiness for others or for yourself. Please keep all materials together- you will not be able to complete core 2 without having these resources and the work/activities that accompany them nor will these be easily replaced. Losing your research along the way will not be an excuse.

  • “The Spoils of Happiness,” David Sosa
  • FLOW, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
  • Dan Gilbert Ted.com talk: “The Surprising Science of Happiness”
  • “A Formula for Happiness,” Arthur Brooks
  • Excerpt from A Whole New Mind, Dan Pink
  • “What if the Secret to Success is Failure?,” Paul Tough
  • Elizabeth Gilbert Ted.com talk: “Success, Failure and the Drive to Keep Creating”
  • Chief Seattle's famous speech to President Franklin Pierce
  • “Silence and the Notion of the Commons” by Ursula Franklin.
  • “How to Make Your Life Happier through Social Media,” Paresh Shah
  • “In Praise of a Snail’s Pace,” Ellen Goodman
  • Michael Norton Ted.com talk: “How to Buy Happiness”
  • “There's More to Life Than Being Happy,” Emily Esfahani Smith
  • “Unsung Hero” Commercial
  • Mike Rowe’s Blog Post to a man looking for a job
  • Malcolm Gladwell Ted.com talk: “Spaghetti Sauce”