English 1101 paper 2 assignments, fall 2009

Paper 2

Read every word below carefully, more than once, before starting your essay.

Respond to one of the following options in an essay of 750-1100 words (in the body of the essay, excluding headers, name, date, title, works cited entries, etc.). Raise a central question at the end of your introduction that the rest of the paper strives to answer in the persuasive format.

For details of the physical formatting of your paper on paper—margins, headers, titles, etc.—see the simple stuff page. For guidelines on quotation and documentation, see the quotes and documentation page. All options require quotations from the readings, so a works cited page is necessary.

I encourage you to seek my help with your paper outside of class, of course. If my office hours don't mesh well with your schedule, let me know, and we'll make arrangements for other times.

Works cited info: For bibliographic information on the handouts, see the referring pages from our schedule of readings and assignments (the pages from which you loaded the Adobe .pdf files).

Note that you must submit the final draft in both hard copy (printed on paper) and electronic form (as an email attachment).

Paper proposals: Before you begin writing the essay, construct a topic sentence outline just as we did with the first paper: begin the outline with the literal question your paper addresses, then give full topic sentences that answer the question directly for each primary point in your paper (i.e. for each body paragraph), just as they will appear in the essay itself, and conclude the outline with the paper's overall thesis, answering the central question directly and combining your essential points from the various topic sentences. See sample topic sentence outlines on my writing tips page and on this page.

Options:
1) If you agree with the critics who condemn our system of pre-university education, identify the primary flaws in the system and make thoughtful suggestions for improving American education. You may rely on any of our readings to support of your assertions, but your primary points of analysis should present your own thinking on the issue: bring in at least three quotations from the readings to support your views, not to make your primary points for you.

Note that this option does not necessarily call for argumentation—you can raise a question in the introduction and then present only positive, direct answers that you agree with. In other words, an opposing viewpoint is not required with this option.

2) Argue for or against Paul Goodman's proposal to abolish grading at the college level. If you agree with Goodman, be wary of simply restating his argument—argue for Goodman's ideas, but concentrate primarily on explaining why you agree with them. Quote Goodman's article at least three times: you might also quote Diane Ravitch's article, "In Defense of Testing," and/or Joy Alonso's "Two cheers for Examination," but you are not required to do so.

3) What qualities and strategies make a teacher effective—that is, what makes a good teacher? This option does require argumentation, so in order to adhere to the persuasive format, you will need to view this question as a two-sided issue: consider as the opposing argument some quality or qualities others think important to effective teaching but that you disagree with. Include at least two quotations from any of our readings on education.

4) Argue for or against banning laptops from college classrooms, quoting the two articles from our Little, Brown text on pp. 111-16 at least four times total, quoting each article at least once.

5) Argue for or against Patrick Allitt's proposal that American colleges and universities dispense with core curriculum or liberal arts general education courses and allow students to specialize in their career-track majors as soon as they enter college. Include at least four quotations from our Little, Brown readings in your discussion.