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Filiere: English Studies

Semester 3

Module: 16

Composition

Instructor: Dr Rachid Agliz

Lecture 9: The Multi Paragraph

Examples:

Topic 1: I am studying only to get a job. Discuss.

Nowadays, people start putting into question the current educational

programs. These programs are no longer useful because they do not provide
people with jobs. Education should aim to prepare the future generations for
professional careers and ought to be more practical than theoretical.

In our society, education has always been a means of getting knowledge

about the world. Its objective has been to prepare young people for social
integration. They learn values, social and philosophical to become good and law
abiding citizens once they grow up. Education is also meant to develop in
students the capacity to judge and to criticize. In few words, education prepares
individuals to become independent thinkers.

However, this kind of education has proved to be more theoretical than it

is practical. As we can notice, flocks of graduate students find themselves
unemployed because they have not received a practical education that would
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prepare them for a professional career. The government has spent a huge amount
of money on the education of a whole generation without getting any benefit
from it in return for that. Worse than that, these unemployed young people
become burdens on their families as well.

It is high time we started reconsidering our educational programs and their

objectives. I think that education should be directed towards building up
professional careers because people these days worry more about subsistence
than about anything else. They want to work in order to earn a living.
Professional education does not only provide people with the financial stability
they need but it also and more importantly contributes to the economy of the
country. For instance, tradesmen help a lot in the development of the country
economically. Our programs should include business studies and professional
courses. These activities should be introduced in the early classes of our
secondary school. Students should be taught computerizing, mechanics,
electricity, hairdressing. In addition to this, we should be in close contact with
the different new inventions in technology and new methods of teaching in other
developed countries.

To sum up, we should not deny the importance of theoretical education.

Yet, our pragmatic society requires practicality in the educational system.

Topic 2: Nowadays people are very materialistic.

Materialism can be defined as the tendency to possess material things

and to neglect spiritual values. Can you imagine a society living without moral
and religious values to guide its members? Surely, it would be a world governed
by automatism and robotic behavior. Are people really aware of the dangers of
rejecting their moral values? It is noticed that our modern society is becoming
gradually materialistic. People have become excessively interested in acquiring
material possessions, mainly money. As a result, they have neglected their
religion, morality and their traditional identity.

Obviously, many people in our society have rejected Islam ignoring the
serious consequences of their attitude. For example, they do not pray and fast in
Ramadan. They prefer to lead a secular life which enables them to live freely
from religious constraints. However, they are not aware that God promises
heaven for those who obey him and hell for those who deny him. Apart from
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this, metaphysical reward and retribution, living without religion and immersing
oneself in the pleasures of materialism do not provide satisfaction. People
strongly believe that money is a bliss and that the fact of having a large sum of it
will help them to live happily and realize their dreams. Unfortunately, they find
themselves in the long run trapped in an endless search for more and more
money. Therefore, spiritual life gives meaning to materialism which is
considered then as a means and not an end in itself.

The mere fact of rejecting religion may result in discarding moral

values. Money hunters possess no scruples. They can steal, lie and even kill to
get it. By way of illustration, when a politician gets to power he becomes
corrupted in the sense that he starts hunting for more money and working for his
own privileges neglecting the fact that he should work for the benefit of the
nation. He is in this case ruining the economy of his country. Moreover, there
are some businessmen who harm society by making girls fall into debauchery to
get wealth out of it. These people sometimes run brothels just for the sake of
earning more illicit money.

The negative consequences of rejecting morality and religion

mentioned above are less important if compared to the danger of losing one’s
identity. For instance, living abroad for a young Moslem may cause him to lose
his traditional identity easily if he adopts the culture of the foreign country. He
would for example start drinking wine, eating pork and behaving like foreigners.
As a result, he becomes Europeanized and loses his original identity.

All in all, materialism is damnation rather than bliss. In the absence of

spiritual guidance, material life is blind to the happiness and welfare of man
because hunting for it breeds greed and dissatisfaction.

Exercise:

Read the following multi paragraph essays and identify the main topic
sentences, the supporting statements, the hook and the main arguments