world literature essay topics

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Student Opinion

100-Plus Writing Prompts to Explore Common Themes in Literature and Life

By The Learning Network

• Jan. 31, 2019

Update, Feb. 15, 2019: Learn more about how to use our 1000s of writing prompts by watching our free on-demand webinar: “ Give Them Something to Write About: Teach Across the Curriculum With New York Times-Inspired Daily Prompts. ”

Every day since 2009 we’ve been asking students a question inspired by an article, essay, video or feature in The New York Times.

Periodically, we sort those questions into lists to make finding what you need easier, like these previous lists of prompts for personal or narrative writing and for argumentative writing , or like this monster list of more than 1,000 prompts , all categorized by subject.

This time, however, we’re making a list to help your students more easily connect the literature they’re reading to the world around them — and to help teachers find great works of nonfiction that can echo common literary themes.

Below, we’ve chosen the best prompts — those that ask the most relevant questions and link to the richest Times materials — from our Student Opinion collection that address every stage of life, from coming-of-age and wrestling with one’s identity to understanding one’s role in a family; making friends; getting an education; falling in love; working; and experiencing old age. We hope they can provide jumping-off points for discussion and writing, and inspiration for further reading.

Most teachers know that our Student Opinion questions are free and outside The Times’s digital subscription service, but what you may not realize is that if you access the Times articles we link to from those questions via our site, the articles are also free. So in this list we hope we’re not just suggesting 100-plus interesting questions, we hope we’ve also helped you find 100-plus great works of nonfiction that can speak to the literature your students are reading.

So whether you’re taking on classic works like “The Catcher in the Rye,” “Romeo and Juliet” or “1984,” or whether you’re teaching more contemporary literature like “The Poet X,” “Speak,” “Refugee” or “There There,” we hope there are more than a few items on this list that will resonate.

Please note: All our recent questions, from late 2016 on, are still open to comment on our site. While questions published on an older version of The Learning Network are no longer open to comment, both the questions and the related Times materials are still available via the link.

I. Coming-of-Age

1. What Rites of Passage Mark the Transition to Adulthood in Your Community? 2. When Have You Reinvented Yourself? 3. Is It Harder to Grow Up in the 21st Century Than It Was in the Past? 4. Have You Ever Felt Pressured by Family or Others in Making an Important Decision About Your Future? 5. What Do Older Generations Misunderstand About Teenagers Today? 6. Are You Too Hard on Yourself? 7. What Childhood Rules Did You Break? 8. What Have You Learned in Your Teens? 9. Do You Think Anxiety Is a Serious Problem Among Young People? 10. Does Suffering Make Us Stronger and Lead to Success? 11. Do We Give Children Too Many Trophies? 12. Do You Have ‘Emerging Adult’ Skills? 13. Is Childhood Today Too Risk-Free? 14. How Young Is Too Young to Use Social Media? 15. What Are Your Secret Survival Strategies? 16. What Have You Learned From a Younger Person — and What Have You Taught an Older Person? 17. Do You Think Teenagers Can Make a Difference in the World?

II. Identity

1. Are You the Same Person on Social Media as You Are in Real Life? 2. How Much Does Your Neighborhood Define Who You Are? 3. Have You Ever Taken a Stand That Isolated You From Your Peers? 4. What’s the Story Behind Your Name? 5. Are You Being Raised to Pursue Your Dreams? 6. Have You Ever Been Told You Couldn’t Do Something Because of Your Gender? 7. Do You Feel Constricted by Gender Norms? 8. What Messages About Gender Have You Gotten From Music? 9. Why Is Race So Hard to Talk About? 10. Is America ‘Backsliding’ on Race? 11. What Is the Role of Religion or Spirituality in Your Life? 12. How Often Do You Start Conversations About Faith or Spirituality? 13. What Is Your Earliest Memory? 14. How Resilient Are You? 15. Are You a Patient Person? 16. What Role Does Envy Play in Your Life? 17. How Do You Handle Fear? 18. How Much Control Do You Think You Have Over Your Fate? 19. What Are You Grateful For? 20. How Often Do You Leave Your ‘Comfort Zone’? 21. When Was the Last Time You Did Something That Scared or Challenged You? 22. Does What You Wear Say Anything About You as a Person?

III. Being Part of a Family

1. Who Is Your Family? 2. How Are You and Your Parents Alike and Different? 3. How Much Freedom Have Your Parents Given You? 4. Will You Follow in Your Parents’ Footsteps? 5. How Much Do You Know About Your Family’s History? 6. How Often Do You Fight With Your Parents? 7. Do You Have Helicopter Parents? 8. Do Your Parents Spy on You? 9. Should Parents Track Their Teenager’s Location? 10. How Do You Make Parenting Difficult for Your Parents? 11. What Good Can Come From Disagreements? 12. What Advice Would You Give to Your Mom, Dad or Guardian on How to Be a Better Parent? 13. How Do You Get What You Want From Your Parents? 14. Should Parents Bribe Their Children? 15. Do Your Parents Yell at You? 16. What’s the Best Way to Discipline Children? 17. How Should Parents Teach Their Children About Race and Racism? 18. Do the Adults in Your Life Follow You on Social Media? 19. What Advice Do You Have for Teenagers and Their Parents? 20. What Messages About Food and Eating Have You Learned From Your Family?

IV. Making Friends, IRL and Online

1. Do You Ever Feel Lonely? (video) 2. How Good a Friend Are You? 3. Do You Find It Easier to Make New Friends Online or in Person? 4. How Alike Are You and Your Friends? 5. Do You Have Any Unlikely Friendships? 6. What Does the World Need to Know About an Important Person in Your Life? 7. Does Technology Make Us More Alone? (video) 8. How Often Do You Spend One-on-One Time With Your Closest Friends? 9. Is Your Phone Love Hurting Your Relationships? (quiz) 10. Do You Spend Enough Time With Other People? 11. How Do You Feel About Introducing Friends From Different Parts of Your Life? 12. Do You Like Your Friends? 13. Do You Consider Your Siblings Friends? 14. How Have You Helped a Friend in a Time of Need? 15. Do You Take More Risks When You Are Around Your Friends? 16. Who Outside Your Family Has Made a Difference in Your Life? 17. Do You Ever Talk About Issues of Race and Class With Your Friends? 18. Is Your Online World Just a ‘Filter Bubble’ of People With the Same Opinions?

V. Getting an Education

1. What Do You Wish Your Teachers Knew About You? 2. Is School a Place for Self-Expression? 3. Are You Stressed About School? 4. Are Straight A’s Always a Good Thing? 5. How Well Do Rewards and Incentives Work to Motivate You? 6. Are High School Students Being Worked Too Hard? 7. When Has a Teacher Inspired You? (video) 8. Has a Teacher Ever Changed Your Mind-Set? 9. Does Your Teacher’s Identity Affect Your Learning? 10. Should Schools Teach You How to Be Happy? 11. Do You Feel Your School and Teachers Welcome Both Conservative and Liberal Points of View? 12. Have You Experienced Racism or Other Kinds of Discrimination in School? 13. Do Teachers Assign Too Much Homework? 14. How Should Schools Address Cyberbullying? (video) 15. Has a Novel Ever Helped You Understand Yourself or Your World Better? 16. Is Your School’s Dress Code Too Strict? 17. What Worries Do You Have About College? 18. Do Other People Care Too Much About Your Post-High School Plans? 19. Is the College Admissions Process Fair? 20. Should Everyone Go to College? 21. How Prepared Are You for College? How Well Do You Think You’ll Do? 22. How Well Do You Think Standardized Tests Measure Your Abilities? 23. Can Students at Your School Talk Openly About Their Mental Health Issues? 24. Is Live-Streaming Classrooms a Good Idea?

VI. Learning About Love (and Sex)

1. Have You Ever Been in Love? 2. Should Your Significant Other Be Your Best Friend? 3. What Are the Basic ‘Rules’ for Handling Breakups? 4. What’s the Best Way to Heal a Broken Heart? 5. How Important Do You Think It Is to Marry Someone With the Same Religion? 6. How Do You Think Technology Affects Dating? 7. Is Dating a Thing of the Past? 8. Is Hookup Culture Leaving Your Generation Unhappy and Unprepared for Love? 9. Could Following These Directions Make You Fall in Love With a Stranger? 10. What Constitutes Sexual Consent? 11. Do You Find It Hard to Say ‘I Love You’?

VII. Working and Finding Your Purpose

1. What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up? 2. Do You Think You Will Have a Career That You Love? 3. Would You Pursue a Career If You Knew You Likely Would Not Make Much Money? 4. Does Achieving Success Always Include Being Happy? 5. How Do You Express Yourself Creatively? 6. What Are Your Thoughts on ‘Hustle Culture’? 7. Is Struggle Essential to Happiness? 8. Does Achieving Success Always Include Being Happy? 9. Do You Give Yourself Enough Credit for Your Own Successes? 10. How Important a Role Has Money, Work or Social Class Played in Your Life? 11. When Have You Failed? What Did You Learn From It? 12. What Challenges Have You Overcome? 13. What Are Your Expectations About Earning, Saving and Spending Money? 14. What Choices Do You Make About Money Every Day? 15. Do You Perform Better When You’re Competing or When You’re Collaborating? 16. What Activities Make You Feel Most Alive? 17. Where Do You Think You Will Live When You Are an Adult?

VIII. Experiencing Old Age and Confronting Death

1. Do You Look Forward to Old Age? 2. Would You Want to Live Forever? 3. What Do You Want to Be Known for After Your Death? 4. If the World Was Ending, What Would You Want to Say? 5. Would You Like to Be Cryogenically Preserved (Frozen!) Upon Your Death? 6. Do You Believe That Everything Happens for a Reason?

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Writing about World Literature

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The diversity of stories and poems available from around the world makes writing a world literature paper a fascinating experience. At the same time, dealing with texts from different cultures, languages, and time periods presents challenges. Here are six questions to help you through the writing process. Click the link at the top of the page to find a worksheet that will help you organize your notes when writing a world literature paper.

1) What is the assignment?

Make sure you understand what the assignment is asking you to do. Here is a list of common world literature papers (adapted from Karen Gocsik’s Writing about World Literature ):

Literary Analysis

Goal: Explore an image, theme or other element in a text and come to a conclusion about how that element relates to the work as a whole. See the OWL's PowerPoint workshop on literary analysis .

Historical Analysis

Goal: Demonstrate the relationship between a text and its political, cultural, or social environment and argue for the significance of this relationship.

Comparison Paper

Goal: Compare or contrast two texts in order to draw a conclusion about their worldviews, values, rhetorical aims, or literary styles. The following two assignments are types of comparison papers.

Writing about Adaptation

Goal: Compare a literary work to a later work that creatively responds to it (e.g., Disney’s The Lion King as an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet ). Make an argument about the significance of the similarities and differences between the original and the adaptation.

Writing about Translation

Goal: Compare two or more different translations of a work. Evaluate the translators’ decisions about certain textual aspects and make an argument about how these decisions exemplify different perspectives on the text as a whole.

2) What are the social and historical contexts?

Research the author and time period, consulting, for example, the introduction in an anthologyor The Dictionary of Literary Biography . Make sure that your interpretation of the text makes sense in light of its contexts. Be careful not to make blanket assumptions about cultures, countries, or time periods, and remember that literary movements are expressed in different ways by different writers. American romanticism is not the same thing as German romanticism.

3) What is the genre?

A genre is a type of composition that has its own characteristic forms, styles, and themes. Genres can vary across cultures.

4) Are you reading the text in translation?

If so, consider what may have been lost in translation. When using a translation as your source text, do not ground your argument on word choice, sentence structure, or rhyme scheme unless you can refer back to the original language.

5) What is your thesis?

Your thesis should put forward an argument rather than merely offer a description or observation. Ask the following questions: What is the significance of your interpretation? How does your interpretation help us to better understand the work as a whole?

Here is an example of a descriptive thesis . It is too obvious and does not constitute a real argument.

Here is an example of an argumentative thesis . It offers an interpretation of the characters of Achilles and Hector that sheds light on the meaning of the work as a whole.

6) Are your citations correct?

When you quote from your sources, be sure to cite correctly.

Here is an example that shows how to quote a primary source from an anthology in MLA style.

Then, in the Works Cited , provide full bibliographic information for the source:

Works Consulted

Damrosch, David. How to Read World Literature . Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.

---, ed. Teaching World Literature . New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009.

---. What Is World Literature? Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Gocsik, Karen. Writing about World Literature. New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2012.

*Special thanks to the World Literature teachers of Purdue University for sharing their insights.