Select 2 specific religious holidays, festivals, or celebrations to explore.
□ Each of your selections must represent a different religion from the first half of the course: Hinduism,
Jainism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Shintoism, or a specific Indigenous Religion.
□ Each holiday, festival, or celebration is discussed in terms of activities, events, observances, and beliefs.
□ Research sources are academic, scholarly, or primary sources (scriptures or doctrines of the religion).
□ Include an MLA formatted bibliography of at least 3 sources.
□ The structure is that of a standard college essay.
□ Submission is at least 600 words (bibliographies are not a part of the word count).
□ Contains appropriate sentence and paragraph formats, proper grammar, and correct spelling and
punctuation.
□ Demonstrates original writing skills.
□ Quotes are limited to primary source materials only and are no more than 10% of the paper content.
RELIGIONS - The holidays, festivals, or celebrations discussed represent events from two different religions
studied in the first half of the course: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Shintoism, or a
specific Indigenous Religion. This means that you cannot provide two holidays, festivals, or celebrations
from a single religion. Instead, you are to provide an exploration of different religious traditions. In some
cases, you will find events are observed by multiple religions. When this happens, you should identify each
of the participating religions; but isolate your full analysis to only one (1) religion.
CONTENT - You should describe the various activities and events associated with each, the religion(s)
responsible, and the beliefs behind them. Are there specific activities, props, and/or dietary aspects associated
with the event? To what extent do the people participate? Are there variations in activities, events,
observances, and beliefs based on geographical or divisional/denominational differences? Are the
celebrations publically observed or isolated in the religious communities? Have they become secularized at
all?
Sample Solution