English 1A Essay

English 1A Essay #1 Prompt: Engaging the Text

Write a 5-7 paragraph essay on one of the 5 topics listed below. Make sure you have an arguable thesis statement, three-four body paragraphs that support your thesis (contain examples, details, and quotes from the text corroborating your statements), and a concluding paragraph that ties up any loose ends. Be mindful of spelling, punctuation, mechanics, and grammar. Underline your thesis statement. Use academic language, and do not use the pronouns “I” or “you.” State your opinions objectively. Format the paper in MLA style and use MLA-style parenthetical notes to document your references to the text: (Smith 167). Be sure to introduce a quote, “quote verbatim,” then cite (King 126). Remember, to analyze is not to summarize. No outside sources allowed.

Criteria for Evaluation:

1. Describe the author’s argument, and what you see as his most important or interesting sub-claims, explaining how these sub-claims relate to the main claim.

1. Write the paper as if addressing a reader unfamiliar with the text, but do not summarize.

1. Comment on how this article is significant—what difference it might make to readers. Take into account the original audience.

1. Use an effective structure that carefully guides the reader from one idea to the next, and thoroughly edit so that sentences are readable and appropriate for an academic audience.

1. In Rereading America, you’ve read an essay by John Taylor Gatto’s “Against School” who presents his argument about education. According to Gatto, there are six unstated purposes of public schooling. Describe three of them. To what extent does your own prior educational experience support this bleak view of American education? Formulate an arguable thesis and support your claims with textual evidence. You may use “I” for this essay.

2. In Rereading America, you’ve read essays by John Taylor Gatto, Diane Ravitch, Mike Rose, and William Deresiewicz. All the authors present arguments about education. Select one of the essays. To present their various viewpoints and convey their arguments to the reader, they employ the use of many different rhetorical strategies. Identify the rhetorical strategies - ethos, pathos, and logos - that are used in each essay to present the author’s opinions. For each reading, you are to find quotes that support the author’s claim/thesis. The paper should identify the main argument/thesis of the author, the rhetorical strategies used, examine why they were chosen, and analyze the effects they have on an audience (SOAPS). Paper will also discuss the effectiveness and relative strength of the strategies chosen.

3. To what extend do Rose’s experiences in “I Just Wanna Be Average” challenge or confirm John Taylor Gatto’s critique of public education in “Against School?” How might Gatto account for the existence of truly remarkable teachers like Rose’s Jack Macfarland?

4. How might Mike Rose respond to Deresiewicz’s claims in “Don’t Send Your Kids to an Ivy League” that college offers students the opportunity to “stand outside the world for a few years…and contemplate things from a distance”, and that the ultimate goal of college is “building a self”?

5. Drawing on the ideas of Deresiewicz and Diane Ravitch, write an essay on the commercialization of education. Do you think that we are placing too much emphasis on education as a form of career training today or that college culture has been infected by corporate culture? Why or why not?

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