Law help

BASIC INSTRUCTIONS:        

1. Write a 5-7-page essay (approx. 1500-1750 words; double spaced, 12 pt. type) on one of the following topics.

2. Follow the MLA style to cite internally (in the body of the paper), and externally (Works Cited).

 ORGANIZATION:

Your essay should have an introductory paragraph that includes a thesis statement, and a concluding paragraph. Your essay should be carefully organized, be supported with quotations from the text, and provide a coherent argument. Be sure to provide adequate and meaningful transitions between ideas and paragraphs.

5. DEVELOPMENT:

Since this is a short paper, make sure to have a clear focus and adjust the scope of the paper so that you are able to develop a well-supported and in-depth argument.

Keep in mind that to prove your thesis, you will need to find multiple examples from this text (these texts) to support your argument. You will also need to explain in your essay what is important or unique about this work (why is it worth reading). You may also point out to the shortcomings or weak points in the writer’s argument (that is, your job as a writer is also to evaluate the quality of the arguments made by these writers).  

Pay attention not only to the content, but also to the language, tone, style and diction (word choice) of each work you examine. How do the linguistic elements help this writer get his or her point across? What effects do these features and the choices the writer makes have on the reader?

PAPER TOPICS:

1.

The writers whose works we have studied this semester often wrote with the goal of exposing hidden or underreported truths about a specific feature or aspect of the United States criminal justice system.

Select two works that we have read this semester and trace the ways in which these works renders visible race, gender, class-based or any other form of inequality, prejudice—both conscious and unconscious; visible and invisible—or problem existing in the U.S. criminal justice system.

make sure that you make an argument that encompasses all the works examined in your paper.

CHOSEN WORKS:

MUMIA ABU JAMAL- LIVE FROM DEATH ROW 

AND 

JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA- CLOUDY DAY 

 Cloudy Day

BY JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA

It is windy today. A wall of wind crashes against,

windows clunk against, iron frames

as wind swings past broken glass

and seethes, like a frightened cat

in empty spaces of the cellblock.

In the exercise yard

we sat huddled in our prison jackets,

on our haunches against the fence,

and the wind carried our words

over the fences,

while the vigilant guard on the tower

held his cap at the sudden gust.

I could see the main tower from where I sat,

and the wind in my face

gave me the feeling I could grasp

the tower like a cornstalk,

and snap it from its roots of rock.

The wind plays it like a flute,

this hollow shoot of rock.

The brim girded with barbwire

with a guard sitting there also,

listening intently to the sounds

as clouds cover the sun.

I thought of the day I was coming to prison,

in the back seat of a police car,

hands and ankles chained, the policeman pointed,

    “See that big water tank? The big

    silver one out there, sticking up?

    That’s the prison.”

And here I am, I cannot believe it.

Sometimes it is such a dream, a dream,

where I stand up in the face of the wind,

like now, it blows at my jacket,

and my eyelids flick a little bit,

while I stare disbelieving. . . .

The third day of spring,

and four years later, I can tell you,

how a man can endure, how a man

can become so cruel, how he can die

or become so cold. I can tell you this,

I have seen it every day, every day,

and still I am strong enough to love you,

love myself and feel good;

even as the earth shakes and trembles,

and I have not a thing to my name,

I feel as if I have everything, everything