(For this semester, everyone wrote about difficulties with school in response to "The Language or Responsibility" by Skip Downing.)
The topics for this paper will come from a text that we read as a class. You will explore one of the questions or problems that are addressed in this text. You can choose something from your own experience or the experience of others, but you must incorporate someone else’s ideas into your exploration: the text, another’s experience (one of your fellow students, for example), an expert, another text, an interview, and so forth. You will try to view the question/problem from as many sides as you can, and you will make sure the reader understands the significance of the question/problem. You don’t necessarily have to come up with a pat answer to this question—as you continue in your critical thinking in college, you will discover that the most interesting or difficult questions do not have simple answers.
For example, if you want to write about a problem from the movie Waiting for "Superman", you might explore one of the following questions:
What is the role of money in helping or hurting public education?
What can parents do to improve their children's education?
What can teachers to do improve children's education?
What can be done to improve education for more children if they can't all go to charter schools and private schools?
What other interesting or difficult questions are raised by this movie?
What other interesting or difficult questions are raised by the other texts we have studied this semester?
Prewriting
You will use the same methods that you did for Essay One and Essay Two to get you started on this writing assignment. Look at your previous writing about these topics—either your notes, your prewriting, our in-class writing, or your reading logs, and choose one of the topics that most resonates with you. Freewrite or brainstorm, or cluster map—or choose any of the prewriting activities used in class—about this topic. Once you have finished your prewriting, you are ready to begin your rough draft.
Drafting
The first drafts of your essay are due within one week of the day this essay is assigned.
The rough draft must be placed in Google Docs, at least 1000 words, with a clear introduction, body, and conclusion. We will be working on organizing ideas clearly in paragraphs and explaining ideas using specific pieces of evidence.
The following is a list of guidelines to follow as you write your rough draft:
a.) Introduction: Aim for 125-250 words describing your own experience (or someone else’s) of the puzzling question/problem you wish to explore. Think about ways to grab the reader’s attention.
You can also include in your introduction the specific question you will explore.
The thesis statement should be a very clear statement of the problem, some of its parts, and why it’s important—to the reader as well as to you.
For example: Money plays many roles in contributing to the problems in public education, including spending on bureaucracies, teacher salaries, buildings, and busing, and any solution to our failing public schools will have to deal with the part money plays in the problem.
** DO NOT propose a solution in your thesis statement; just outline the problem as you see it based on the text and your own experience**
b.) Body: Like our analysis essays, the body paragraphs should include evidence that supports your description of the problem.
Find quotes and examples from the text you have chosen to prove your thesis. You can also include your own experience or that of others to back up your point.
You should have at least 3 body paragraphs, hopefully more, where you explore the reasons why this problem exists and how it affects the community/culture in which it exists. If there are multiple opposing viewpoints about your problem or question, make sure you give the reader multiple sides of the controversy around this problem.
c.) Conclusion: There are a lot of ways to end a paper like this one: You might end your paper reminding your readers of the importance of the problem, or leave the readers with one final thought about the problem. You might even talk about any uncertainty that remains for you about the problem, or you might include what additional information might be needed to begin to address the question. You might attempt to give the readers a possible solution—or a hopeful vision for the future regarding this problem. Just be careful not to provide a too-easy solution for a large, complex, often ongoing problem.
Editing
The final stage of our writing will be editing to essay to meet expectations of academic written English. We will be working on surface level grammar and syntax throughout the semester as we prepare essays for the final portfolio.