Assignment: Write a persuasive essay in which you show that solving a local problem will enhance the quality of PEACE in your community (neighborhood, city, college, or region). Address your essay to a particular reader who has the power to implement or help implement your solution. In your proposal argument you will do the following: (1) describe and analyze a local problem which, if solved, would enhance the general level of peace in the community; (2) describe and analyze a full or partial solution to that problem; and, throughout the essay, (3) argue persuasively that your specific reader should not only recognize and care about the problem, but also take some action (or stop doing something) in order to solve or help solve the problem. Research and write with a social consciousness that is genuinely personal, but not self-centered, so that you can explore and explain something about peace in your community that affects many other people and that genuinely matters to you. Do not write a self-help type of paper. For more information on arguments using the problem-solution technique, see the Proposal Arguments Website/handout.
To ground your argument in reality, you will include at least one paragraph on a recent, relevant event that helps describe or shed light on the problem and/or solution you have chosen to examine; you can grab your readers’ attention, often, by beginning your essay with a brief description of this event and set them up to accept your argument. To develop your full argument, you will quote and explicate or explain the meaning and relevance of excerpts from 7 or more sources (see specific requirements below). You will use the APEx formula to introduce your references, to provide information about the authors as appropriate (e.g., credentials), and to explain whatever you quote, summarize, or paraphrase from these authors. Your reference to the poetic works should demonstrate your skills in close reading of poetry. Your choice of and reference to all your sources should demonstrate your skills in scholarly research.
Consider the most informative and insightful points that were communicated by the team talks as guides in your prewriting process. You may use these ideas and these literary works, or you may choose a different direction for topic and literary sources to help you argue persuasively on the significance of your thesis. Examples of previous semester's work are located in the free reserve shelf of the library. Click here (essay) to read an essay nominated for inclusion in the 2007 edition of Tidepools as a model of good writing on the topic—but please note that this assignment was not exactly the same as yours, so use it only as a model of good writing, not as a perfect model for this assignment (follow the specific directions for this assignment). To shape and develop your essay, follow the directions below.
Minimum Length, Research, and Works Cited Page: 2000-2500 words, or about 8-10 pages (not including Works Cited or appendix). Works-Cited list = 7 or more credible sources: 2 or more literary sources (minimum=1 poem and 1 song), and 5 or more other substantive and credible sources, including at least one substantive scholarly journal article, at least one book published by a credible publishing house, and one interview with an expert who works in the area you are researching. Check our Poetry Page for ideas if the poems in our textbooks don't work for you. Wherever possible, cite credentials for your sources when you refer to the authors; do the same where relevant for the literary sources. Paper 3 satisfies the major "research paper" requirement for English 201.
Audience and Purpose: You need to have in mind a particular audience for your essay—a person or who is an expert, someone who has studied the problem you are analyzing or the solution you are proposing, or a person or group in a position to implement or help implement your solution to the problem. Your audience is not me as your professor, and not just your classmates (though it may include them), and certainly not “college students” or the “general public”—though these readers may also be interested in and persuaded by your arguments. Do not write a self-help paper; rather, aim to persuade someone to do something that will help other people. As an argument, your purpose will be to move, inspire, or persuade your specific audience to do (or not do) something that will solve, or help solve, the problem and in doing so, repair, restore, or renew the peace of your community as you have conceptualized it for this paper.
Appendix: Attach documented copies of (a) the complete song lyrics and (b) the complete poem you cite in the paper, as well as the (c) relevant pages from the other works cited in your essay. "Documented copies" means you have added bibliographical information including page number (i.e., documentation), on the copies to show bibliographical information of the source. Attach notes (and recording if available) from your interview.
Format, Copies, and Submission Instructions: Use the standard PAPER GUIDELINES handout for important format and submission information. Use poetic form when quoting from the poems and songs (see Barnet Appendix for details on in-text or set-off quotations of poetry and prose). Use the APEx formula consistently when you cite any source. Use this assignment page as a cover sheet, and follow it with either a title page (follow the format learned in the previous project) or your first page of text. Turn in two hard copies of your essay: one for my evaluation and commentary and one for peer review (first page through Works-Cited List for the peer reviewer); and send me a third copy (first page through Works-Cited list), electronically, via email attachment to <engl201gf@miracosta.edu> for my files.
Essay Analysis Letter: Plan time for your essay analysis. After you have prepared your essay for my review, save enough time to write, polish, and print out a separate essay analysis that includes both process and content analysis in one letter to me (be sure to identify titles of the poems and songs you cite in your essay; include authors, and give page references when available). Turn in one hard copy of your essay analysis letter (remember the word count, too). Finally, show me your writing process for this paper by attaching the following to your Essay Analysis Letter: (1) your plan for Paper 3, (2) your outline(s), (3) your first full drafts, and (4) a revised draft.
Research Process: I will not be evaluating your other notetaking or research journal practices for this project. If you want to practice the scholarly research method and earn points you did not earn for Paper 2, you must make arrangements with me before the end of week eight. Be prepared to settle on a specific research plan, including a series of due dates for pieces of the research process.
Alternative Assignment (literary criticism): Write an essay on the use of language and poetic devices in three literary works (one song and two poems) that argues an interpretation related to peace (i.e., an aspect of peace that is relevant to the lives of some or all of the students at MiraCosta College). Your four secondary sources will be the types used by literary scholars and will reflect your particular critical perspective or approach. In all other ways, your essay should meet the other requirements provided above for the problem-solution paper.
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Created 02 April 2004.
Revised 01 March 2008. Contents Copyright 2004-2008.
Gloria L. Floren . All rights reserved.
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Students: engl201gf@miracosta.edu