The play, How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel.

Drama: read and analyze the play, How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel.
When you write your essay, it is not about the play that you are writing, it is ideas, questions, inspirations, just information that u would like to know more about.
Choose a theme that you are thinking about. What would you like to explore/research for more information, to satisfy your curiosity about this theme?

Want to write about the victims?

This play is about child sexual abuse. It is not about child physical abuse nor name calling, wife beating or about female vs male abuse but sexual abuse to a minor. So, when I read this play it makes me think of how the victim will suffer later in life.

For your 2nd paper, think about the victims and what happens to them. Choose three different things to research under one thesis. Below are examples of 3 different thesis’s. Choose one or make up your own.
Thesis 1: Adults who were sexually abused as children suffer from their victimization.

1. fear of intimacy
2. prostitution
   3.sexually promiscuous
3. frigidity
4. hopelessness.
5. suicidal tendencies
6. addiction
   Or any other symptom that these victims suffer from. Choose 4 different topics or ones of your own that interest you and research each symptom

Thesis 2: There are many institutions that are now being sued due to child abuse.

1. Catholic Church
2. Boy Scouts
3. Dr.s that treat youngsters
4. Day Care Centers
   5.or any other groups that are found to abuse children

Thesis 3: There are many reasons why children do not tell adults/do not speak to anyone in a position of power about their sexual child abuse.

1. they have been threatened/fear
2. the person who is abusing them is a parent or someone they know and love
3. they have told someone and were not believed
4. they have no idea it is wrong
   Choose any of these or any other reasons you find during your research and write about it.

Thesis: It is a fact that boys are being sexually abused as much as girls are.
Then write about 4 different cases where u can prove that this statement is true.

Want to write about the perpetrator?

What do u feel/ think about when you think about pedophiles? What happened to them? how did they become the way they did? Were they born that way? Do they not know it is wrong?
Do they feel guilty? Shame? How many of them kill their victims? Why kill them?
And how do they find their victims? How are they criminally prosecuted? Can they be rehabilitated through therapy?

Example
Thesis 1. It is a fact that pedophiles have certain types of victims that they only go after.
Now choose 4 different variants that a pedophile looks for.

1. race, (do they cross race? Ex. Do white men go after other race minors)
2. age,
3. sexual preference
4. neighborhood

Or maybe u want to write about what kind of therapy society imposes on pedophiles.

1. castration
2. talk therapy
3. death
   Or maybe you want to write about different countries and how they treat pedophiles choose 4 different countries and write about therapy? Or institutions? Or death even…
   Or maybe, what different types of childhoods did pedophiles have. Or maybe they are all the same. Choose 4 similarities they all share. Just choose anything that makes u want to do research about the perpetrator.

Whatever you choose to write about, pick one topic that you are interested in and then choose four things about that topic that u would like to research.
Were pedophiles abused as children?
Do they all share similarities in their own childhoods?
Have they sexually abused themselves?

Sample Solution