Due Wed 8/10, 7p
For Wednesday, I want you to do two things: (A) take the midterm and (B) read and write feedback on 3 classmates’ Essay 1s.
NOTE: Last week, we worked on noticing the THESIS of Kaba’s and Meares’ texts. Remember: a thesis is a debate-able statement (often a writer’s “opinion”) about a topic. A THESIS is not the same as a TOPIC. A topic is simply the main idea or content of a text; a thesis is the writer’s opinion or point of view ABOUT the topic. For instance, in both Kaba’s and Meares’ texts that we read last week, the topic is police brutality and racism. Kaba’s thesis is her opinion about this topic: what she thinks should be done about racist police brutality (she thinks that we should defund and get rid of police departments). Make sense? OK, now you’re ready for the midterm (below).
A) Midterm Exam. This is a test devised and required by the Summer Program. As such, it is slightly different than the assignments I’ve given so far (which will nevertheless have prepared you well for it. The instructions are simple: read an article and identify the author, title, topic, thesis, and the reasons/details supporting the thesis. Then write a short summary of the article, including therein your response to the article (whether you agree or disagree with it and why).
15% of final grade
The article I want you to read and do your exam on is:
Larry Elder, “Where’s Black Lives Matter When You Need Them?”
As always, write your work in a Google Doc and save to your Google Drive folder for the course, then paste your work as a comment below, responding to this post. Format your exam as follows:
Name (Yours)
Author:
Title:
Topic:
Thesis:
Reasons/Details Supporting Thesis:
Summary (1 paragraph, including all of the above as well as your response to the article—whether you disagree/agree with it and why)
- B) Go to Essay 1 Feedback and read 3 classmates’ essays. Respond to each writer’s post with a comment containing feedback (I repeat: do NOT respond to this post with your feedback—respond to each writer’s post individually; see below for requirements). Please choose classmates who have few-to-no comments from other classmates. Please reply to your classmate’s post with a comment containing…
For each response you give, please provide the following 3 things (I repeat: each of your 5 responses should contain these 3 things):
A–What you think the writer’s thesis is (in your own words). If you can’t identify the thesis, ask the writer to make their thesis clearer.
B–One supporting reason or story the writer gives for believing their thesis to be right. Again, use your own words to describe this. If you can’t identify a supporting reason or story, tell the writer to make this part of their essay clearer.
C—A counter-argument that the writer introduces and then argues AGAINST. Again, describe the counter-argument in your own words. Does the counter-argument go AGAINST the writer’s thesis? If it doesn’t, let the writer know that they should come up with a counter-argument that goes AGAINST their thesis (and then they need to find a way of refuting the counter-argument).
10% of final grade (Essay Feedback)
A)In Larry Elders “ Where’s black lives matter when you need them ?” He discusses that protesters seem to argue black people die at the hands of cops every year and it’s really a huge issue. But in his response he says that homicide is the biggest issue also saying that in recent years, about 50 cops have been shot and killed annually in the line of duty. So, more cops are killed each year than are unarmed black suspects. Larry gives many details from studies to percentages of his claim he’s saying where is black lives matter now when the biggest issue is homicide. Larry is saying the main focus should be put to the fact that many black people die each year but not from police. Larrys reasoning can be seen from him giving all the faIcts stating the No. 1 reason for death, preventable or otherwise for young black men, is homicide, almost always at the hands of another young black man. Also saying In 2018, there were approximately 7,400 black homicide victims, more than half of the nation’s total number of homicides, while the black population is 13% of the U.S. total. As you can see Larrys details supports his reasoning and one could argue with some of his claims but his research you cannot. I personally agree and disagree. I agree with the fact that homicide is definitely the biggest issue for black people dying each year. But I have to disagree that cops are more hesitant, more reluctant, to use deadly force against a black suspect than against a white suspect . I say most cops tend to be more hesitant with white suspects then black there’s so many reasons of why i say this you can see over the years cops have seen to be more aggressive with black people then white .
Sosaa, thank you for this thoughtful midterm. Here are some suggestions for what to revise in order to receive a different score:
–Your capture of Elder’s argument and response to it are quite strong; however, there are some sentences in which I lose the connection between your ideas. Please go back over this and check for those and fix them. Here is an example.
You write: “But in his response he says that homicide is the biggest issue also saying that in recent years, about 50 cops have been shot and killed annually in the line of duty.”
Here, I’m not sure what the connection between part one of the sentence (about black-on-black homicide) and part two (about the number of cops killed annually). I’m not sure how you’re seeing the connection but one possible way of connecting these thoughts would be to place them as separate sentences, each of which describes a different point made by Elder. So something like:
But in Elder’s response, he says that black-on-black homicide is the biggest issue. He also notes that in recent years, about 50 cops have been shot and killed annually in the line of duty, suggesting that as a group cops are at greater risk of being killed than black people. [< I added a phrase at the end to show how this thought is linked to the preceding sentence: black lives lost are being compared to blue lives lost by Elder]
–SO go back over this and make sure the links between all of your ideas and sentences are clear, adding explanation as needed.
–I think there's more you could argue with in Elder's research. Can you dig in to Elder’s manipulative use of statistics a bit more in your response to the quotation in which he mentions that there are more police shootings of unarmed white people than black people in the US? A starting point would be to say: “wait, there are way more white people in America than Black people” (you could google this to get the #s), so it would make sense if there were way more shootings of white people than black people. It comes down to the percentages of each population that are shot by cops. If you look up and analyze the numbers, you will find that a much higher percentage of blacks are shot by cops than whites. This is a key argument to be made AGAINST Elder, and you should use it!
–See if you can find more evidence to support your arguments against Elder.
Thanks!
Name: Mumin Khan
Author: Larry Elder
Title: Where’s Black Lives Matter when you need them?
Topic: Police do not systemically target black people.
Thesis: There is no epidemic of racist cops killing black suspects in the United States because the data do not support it.
Reasons/Details Supporting Thesis: “The police have averaged killing about 1,000 Americans per year. Of that number, half are white, and one-quarter are black…”
“Last year, according to The Washington Post, the police killed nine unarmed blacks. They killed 19 unarmed whites.”
“The No. 1 reason for death, preventable or otherwise for young black men, is homicide, almost always at the hands of another young black man.”
“the black population is 13% of the U.S. total. Of that number, the police killed a little more than 200 blacks, and nearly all of them had a weapon or violently resisted arrest.”
In “Where’s Black Lives Matter when you need them?” author Larry Elder believes that there is no epidemic of racist cops who systemically target black suspects in the United States because the data do not support it. He endorses this claim by providing evidence from multiple sources, for example, “Last year, according to The Washington Post, the police killed nine unarmed blacks. They shot 19 unarmed whites.” Also, “The black population is 13% of the U.S. total. Of that number, the police killed a little more than 200 blacks, and nearly all of them had a weapon or violently resisted arrest.” Thinking back when people like Larry Elder saying he doesn’t see any form of systemic racism, well, guess what? White people also didn’t see any systemic racism even during the 1960s. I can’t entirely agree with this notion him saying there are no police whos targeting people of color. According to “The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, African Americans and whites use drugs at similar rates, but the imprisonment rate of African Americans for drug charges is almost six times that of whites.”
Nevertheless, I agree with Larry’s crucial point: “The No. 1 reason for death, preventable or otherwise for young black men, is homicide, almost always at the hands of another young black man.” It is a real problem in our black community, and to aid this matter; the people are in dire need of homicide prevention centers with the prevention, research, and treatment programs. Defunding the police and investing that money into communities specifically into marginalized communities where most homicide and policing occurs can be the only approach to eliminating violence, which follows in innocent people dying. When you invest in those communities, it will become a safer environment, so there’s less of a concern for its people and need for the police.
Mumin, thank you. This is a very strong midterm–albeit with some improvements to be made. Here are my suggestions:
–Excellent work capturing Elder’s thesis. Please revise your description of his topic so that it is simpler. A topic is usually described not as a statement (“more cops die than people do”; “the police are corrupt”) but rather a simple phrase—e.g., police corruption, fatal police shootings, etc.
–You are quoting quite a lot from Elder’s text where it would be best simply to paraphrase his ideas using your own words. See if you can limit yourself to one quote per summary. You only need to quote in order to show that the author is saying something you are claiming that they are saying or if you want to analyze the author’s language. (You could also do more of this in your responses to the quotes, which brings me to my next point…)
–Can you dig in to Elder’s manipulative use of statistics a bit more in your response to the quotation in which he mentions that there are more police shootings of unarmed white people than black people in the US? A starting point would be to say: “wait, there are way more white people in America than Black people” (you could google this to get the #s), so it would make sense if there were way more shootings of white people than black people. It comes down to the percentages of each population that are shot by cops. If you look up and analyze the numbers, you will find that a much higher percentage of blacks are shot by cops than whites. This is a key argument to be made AGAINST Elder, and you should use it!
PS. Note that Elder is not white; he is black!
Author: Larry Elders
Title: Where’s Black Lives Matter When You Need them?
Topic: more cops die then people do
Thesis: “There is no epidemic of racist cops killing black suspects.”
Reasons / Details Supporting Thesis: “
In recent years, the police have averaged killing about 1,000 Americans per year. Of that number, half are white and one-quarter are black, with the race of remaining suspects of another race or unknown.”
“The No. 1 reason for death, preventable or otherwise for young black men, is homicide, almost always at the hands of another young black man.”
“Cops are more hesitant, more reluctant, to use deadly force against a black suspect than against a white suspect”
In Larry Elder’s ,Where’s Black Lives Matter when you need them? Larry disagrees with cops being the reason for black people die everyday as the population has decreased about 80% since the late 60s. He believes most black men die from homicide or from killing in terms. Larry mentions that cops are more hesitant to use deadly force against a black man then a white man. He mentioned how a police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be killed by an black man than an unarmed black man. I dont agree wiht all that larry has to say i feel as though many cops are the reason for why so many black men die almost everyday at gunpoint. Many cops are just to proud of themselfve to admist tht they are racist and that what they do is wrong i mean tho cops may die as well so do innocent people and theres a lot of them among the unknow racist of people who have died in the hands of cop many of them are black they just get put as unknow. We should never justify a cop killing a human being whos innceocent everyone deserves justice. Just becasue the numbers show one thing that doesnt mean thats how things really are.
Noemie, glad to receive your work here.
Here are some notes on your midterm for you to use when you revise for a re-grade.
–Excellent work capturing Elder’s thesis. Please revise your description of his topic so that it is simpler. A topic is usually described not as a statement (“more cops die than people do”; “the police are corrupt”) but rather a simple phrase—e.g., police corruption, fatal police shootings, etc.
–There are *many* run-on sentences here; in other words, there are many places where you can add periods to separate different sentences representing different ideas. To help with this, please do the exercises in the Grammar & Paragraphing part of the website and include that in your final portfolio. Then go back to this and fix the run-on sentences you’ve found. Here’s one to get you started:
You write: “I dont agree wiht all that larry has to say i feel as though many cops are the reason for why so many black men die”
Revised sentences: I dont agree with all that Elder has to say. I feel as though many cops are the reason for why so many black men die.
–Lastly, I totally respect your disagreement with Elder; however, there are some points you make that require evidence and explanation. Can you provide some evidence——either from another article or from statistics——to back up your claim that “cops are the reason so many black men die everyday”? I’m not saying you’re wrong to say this, but it’s not immediately clear how this is true. Certainly many black men die everyday; however, I’m not totally convinced that cops are the cause of all these deaths. I’m open to your showing me how this is true with evidence, though.
Thanks.
M