Quotations for The Critical Lens Essay

The Critical Lens is an essay form central to the New York Regents and other standardized tests of writing skill.  At its simplest, this is a 4-paragraph form, making it a sweet little exercise for students.  Essential to the essay concept is a quotation that can be applied to texts read by students and, should the teacher wish to extend the basic prompt, to media texts (movies, TV, art) - even to the student's life experiences.

• a basic guide to the form can be found here, 
• a different and more complex form here (with literary terms explained), 
• and here is a handy heads-up about content.

After looking through the guides, released items, and sample essays, I find the quotations used for Critical Lens essay questions to be generally uninspiring. So I have gathered an array of my own. You will see a randomly displayed quotation in the box below. Use this quotation to think critically about two texts, or a text and a media text, or your own life. In doing so, agree or disagree with the assertion made in the quotation. Refresh the page to see a different quote. The quotations can be found at wikiquote.

Please make suggestions for other quotations to use on this page. You can do this by email.  Sharing these quotations with students is, of course, a nice idea.