Unit III: Adding to a Critical Conversation

In Unit III, you will be expanding your role as a writer by engaging in a critical conversation that is already occurring. The overall goal of the unit is to help students evaluate the role of research in writing for more public contexts. The unit seeks to move students from a reliance on a predetermined context to defining their own in order to highlight how writing emerges not only from a required context but more often from the writer and/or an event in the world that prompts one to communicate with others.

For this assignment, you will be asked to create an argumentative essay that uses research in order to make a clear argument concerning a public issue. This issues must represent a current debate, meaning experts with the field must currently disagree about the issue your essay focuses on. Therefore, your first goal should be to use research to ascertain the kinds of things people currently disagree on within the discourse community. For example, climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that man made global warming is an ongoing threat to our environment. A Unit III essay on global warming should therefore not make an argument about whether global warming is real, but instead focus on something experts still debate, such as how we can better combat global warming, why the politics of global warming vary so much from the science, or the relationship between global warming and other issues such as race, class, and gender.

For our model texts, we will be using Ta-Nehisi Coates “The Case for Reparations” and Michelle Alexander’s “from The New Jim Crow.” Page numbers can be found on Brightspace. Please respond to the discussion thread by Sunday, November 7th.

You will be required to find at least 5 sources. 4 of these sources must be argumentative, meaning they must articulate a specific stance within the debate you are researching. 2 of these sources must be from scholarly, peer reviewed journals. You will then write an annotated bibliography on those source, which will be due on Sunday, November 14th. Instructions for the Annotated Bibliography can be found on page 386 of Rules for Writers.

Requirements for First Draft

Essay must include research, cited using MLA formatting, from at least 3 sources, with a separate works cited page at the end of the document

Essay must be 1000 words long

Essay must address a public issue that is actively debated by experts in the field

Requirements for Final Draft

Essay must include research, cited using MLA formatting, from at least 5 sources

Essay must be formatted according to the MLA Style Guide as found in Rules for Writers

Essay must make a central argument that addresses a specific aspect of the public issue

Due Dates

1st DraftNov 21stth

Final DraftDec 5th