Category: Writing Prompts (HW)

Due M, 8/17, 10a

NOTE: Please finish this assignment before 10a on Monday, so we can discuss at our final Zoom meeting.  Remember: revised versions of Essay 1 and your Essay 2 outline will be due in your final portfolio on Tuesday, along with: your five article summaries, 2 revised OpenLab assignments (including your midterm), and your Final Exam (to be given out on Monday).

Part I
Essay 1 Revisions: Read the feedback you received on your Essay 1 and begin revising it.  Re-read your entire essay at least twice—once after reading the feedback and once after adding, re-organizing, and otherwise changing your material.

Part II
—Read the last two Essay 2 articles—on protests during the pandemic—to get ideas for your essay:
9. Dan Diamond, “Suddenly, Public Health Officials Say Social Justice Matters More Than Social Distance”
10. Chelsea Janes. “Protests probably didn’t lead to coronavirus spikes, but it’s hard to know for sure”

–Summarize 1 of these texts and save it as a Google Doc in your Google Drive portfolio.

Part III
Brainstorm and outline for your Essay 2.  Share your essay outline as a comment below; please include the following items in your outline

Essay 2 Outline
–Topic:
–Title/Author of an Article on this Topic you will summarize (can be one of the above readings):
–Your thesis (on whether and how protests should be happening during the Covid pandemic—and your reasons why

–Reason 1 supporting your thesis (topic of body paragraph 1)
–Reason 2 supporting your thesis (topic of body paragraph 2)

–1 related story you can tell that will support your thesis (3-4 notes on the key events and characters of this story will be fine for now)

–1 quotation from the article you’ve chosen that you want to discuss

–1 counter-argument (a perspective that disagrees with your thesis/opinion)

–1 point you will make to refute the counter-argument (why you think the counter-argument is wrong)

NOTE: For anyone wanting extra credit—please do the Grammar & Paragraphing exercises (3 of them) and share your responses as a comment on that post.

We are now shifting into the second and final unit of the course, in which we will be reading, discussing, and writing about the protests—Black Lives Matter and otherwise—that have erupted during the COVID-19 pandemic.  For your Essay 2 (see assignment link below), you will be asked to make an informed argument as to whether you think protesting during the pandemic should be taking place—and, if so, under what conditions.  The assignment for Friday is to help you prepare to write this essay.  Read onward, below!

Due Fri, 8/14, 7p:
—Read the Essay 2 assignment.
—Read the first two Essay 2 articles—on protests during the pandemic—to get ideas for your essay:
–Rep. Ken Buck, “First lockdowns, then riots – here’s how left’s hypocrisy added fuel to the fire”
–Open Letter Advocating for an Anti-Racist Public Health Response

1. Summarize 1 of these texts and save it as a Google Doc in your Google Drive portfolio.
2. Brainstorm and outline for your Essay 2. Post an essay outline containing the following items below as a comment responding to this post:

Essay 2 Outline
–Topic:
–Title/Author of an Article on this Topic you will summarize (can be one of the above readings):
–Your thesis (on whether and how protests should be happening during the Covid pandemic—and your reasons why

–Reason 1 supporting your thesis (topic of body paragraph 1)
–Reason 2 supporting your thesis (topic of body paragraph 2)

–1 related story you can tell that will support your thesis (3-4 notes on the key events and characters of this story will be fine for now)

–1 quotation from the article you’ve chosen that you want to discuss

–1 counter-argument (a perspective that disagrees with your thesis/opinion)

–1 point you will make to refute the counter-argument (why you think the counter-argument is wrong)

For Monday:

Write your Essay 1 assignment in a Google Doc saved to your Google Drive folder. Post a link to your Google Doc (link contains instructions for how to do this), being sure to categorize it as “Essay 1 Feedback.” To make sure you’ve posted correctly, go to the Essay 1 Feedback part of the website and you should see your post with your essay there.

In terms of organizing your essay, please try to use this format for now:

Paragraph 1: Introduce the topic, why it matters, and summarize 1 of the articles on BLM/Police Brutality that we’ve read.  Then also include YOUR RESPONSE TO THAT ARTICLE and YOUR THESIS (what you think should be done about racism/police brutality)

Paragraph 2: Explain 1 of your reasons why you think your THESIS (what you think should be done about police brutality) is right.  In your paragraph, please include an example (a story from your own life or that you’ve heard told by friends, on the internet, etc.) which helps your reader understand your reason for thinking your THESIS is right.

Paragraph 3: Explain 1 other (different/new) reason why you think your THESIS (what you think should be done about police brutality) is right.  In your paragraph, please include an example (a story from your own life or that you’ve heard told by friends, on the internet, etc.) which helps your reader understand your reason for thinking your THESIS is right.

Paragraph 4: Counterclaim. Here, I want you to explain at least 1 reason why someone might disagree with your thesis.  Then respond to this imaginary person who disagrees with you.  Defend your view!

Paragraph 5: Conclusion.  In this paragraph, I want you to restate your THESIS (don’t copy & paste it; now that you’ve gained new insight from writing the essay, you should have new language for explaining your Point of View).  Also explain the broader outcomes for society that you hope will happen if more people take up your thesis and act on it.

Lastly (optional), you can include any questions about your topic that you want to come back to in a future essay.

Using Detailed Storytelling to Persuade

For this assignment, I want you to focus on developing a story for your revised Essay 1 that will SHOW your readers the DETAILS of what is at stake in your topic: racism & police brutality.  Telling a detailed story can be one of the most powerful—and powerfully convincing—strategies for convincing a reader to believe in your thesis.  So this is what I want you to get practice doing for Friday.

First, for inspiration, I want you to (re-)read the opening sections of Larry Elder’s “Where’s Black Lives Matter When You Need Them?” and James Baldwin’s “A Report from Occupied Territory.”  Both of these texts begin with powerfully detailed stories that show us horrific acts of police brutality which draw us into the topic the writer wants us to think about.  However, you will notice that there are some key differences in the way each of these stories is worded and angled.  As discussed in today’s Zoom, Elder writes his story in a way that suggests subtly that what Officer Chauvin did to George Floyd wasn’t murder.  Meanwhile, Baldwin, in his story, plays up the violence that the black salesman experiences and witness while in police custody—violence which leads to his being partially blinded.  I point this out because while both of these stories draw us in to the topic of police brutality, they do so with different purposes in mind: Elder wants to convince us that police brutality towards black people is not as much of an issue as black-on-black violence; on the other hand, Baldwin wants to say that the policing of black neighborhoods like Harlem is tantamount to a military occupation of an otherwise autonomous “territory” or community.  Unlike Elder, he is not at all sympathetic to the cops…

Anyway, for this assignment I want you to respond below with two things:

A) A paragraph-long summary of the story Baldwin tells of the salesman’s experience with the police, and

B) A 1-2 paragraph story you will tell in your Essay 1 to try to convince your reader to believe in your own thesis about police brutality in the US. The story you tell can be from your own experience (something that happened to you or someone you are close to), something that you heard about happening to someone you know, a story you saw/heard about online, on social media, in a movie, etc. Please just make sure you make it as detailed as possible.  Details to include (not necessarily in this order):

–Who are the key characters involved?  What do they look like…sound like…smell like…etc.?  (You can make up details as needed, so long as you remain true enough to the spirit of the story.)

–Where are these characters in space?  Where do the key events of this story take place?  When do the events in this story take place (in history/time)?

–What are they (the main characters) doing?  What happens to them?  Which key events need to be described in order for the reader to understand what is going on and why it matters?

PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THESE QUESTIONS IN ORDER.  INSTEAD, WRITE YOUR STORY AS 1-3 PARAGRAPHS, THEN RE-READ THESE QUESTIONS AND RE-READ/RE-WRITE YOUR STORY, MAKING SURE YOU’VE ADDRESSED ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS SOMEWHERE.

NOTE: This is not a formal Essay assignment.  A formal Essay will be due next Monday.  This assignment, due Wed at 7p in a comment below, is designed to help you write an article summary that you will include in your Essay 1.

1. Be sure to Create a Google Drive folder (with link-sharing enabled) and share this with me using the Student Info Form.  (Refer to the OpenLab “Bible” for more links that will help you set up Google Docs/Drive.)
2. Read the following two articles (Reading Assignments 1 and 2):
   Mariame Kaba, “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police…”
   Tracey Meares’ “Policing: A Public Good Gone Bad” ?
3. Share a response below as a comment containing two parts. In Part A, I want you to tell me in your own words what you think the topic & thesis (two different things) of each article is.  Do this for both Kaba’s text and Meares’ text.  A thesis is a debate-able statement or opinion that an author tries to convince the reader to believe in.  What is Kaba trying to get us to believe in?  What is Meares trying to make us think?  Your responses in part A should answer these questions as best you can.
4. In Part B of your work posted below as a comment, I want you to write a 100-150 word summary for both articles. Place your summaries in your comment below (in the part labeled “B”); also save them in your Google Drive portfolio.MORE ON CREATING A GOOGLE FOLDER AND ORGANIZING/MOVING FILES IN IT
   –> see: create a folder // –> see: move a file or a folder
   —How to Create a Google Doc

Your summary of Kaba’s article and your summary of Meares’ article should both include the following:

–BEFORE YOUR SUMMARY: a list of 5 vocabulary words from the article (of your choosing); for each word, create your own sentence showing its meaning // THEN… Your summary:
—a sentence introducing the author and title of the article: In “[Title of Article],” [Author Name] writes about…[topic of article]
—discussion of at least 2 different perspectives on the main topic of the article—the author’s perspective as well as an opposing or different viewpoint as well (one that the author mentions or which is implied by the content of the article)
—1 direct quotation with adequate context and introduction: Toward the end of her article, Turkle most clearly conveys her main point, that “____sentence-long quotation here____.”
—discussion of important or confusing ideas/words/phrases in this quotation: The most important thing to notice in this passage is…. Something I find interesting/odd/confusing about this passage is….

By the time we Zoom on Monday morning at 11a, I want you to carefully read our  course syllabus.  Be especially careful in reading the “Core Course Assignments & Grading Section” (from the bottom of p. 1 to the top of page 3).

After reading, write a response below (shared as a COMMENT), in which you

A) list at least 10 core course assignments and the % of the final grade for each, and…

B) pose 1 question you have about the syllabus, to be discussed in our Zoom call.