Write an essay in which you carefully interact with source to develop and support your own position

Objective

Write an essay in which you carefully interact with source to develop and support your own position

Getting Started

You will be involved in a detailed conversation with Sandie Friedman about the ideas Friedman discusses in her article, “This Way for Vampires Teaching First-Year Composition in Challenging Times.” download During this time, you will summarize Friedman’s article (in whole and in part!), you will paraphrase sections, and you will respond to it with ideas of your own. This process builds strong foundations for papers.

The final step in the process is to write a paper in which you thoughtfully respond to Friedman. Your response should consist of a few things, generally speaking:

A summary of Friedman’s article (this goes in the introduction)
A thesis that describes your own argument about using popular culture (or anything other than writing itself) as a subject in the writing classroom AND how it relates to Friedman’s
A step-by-step development of your thesis in relation to and incorporating examples of Friedman’s article
Purpose

It helps to see this paper as an account of your “conversation” with Friedman. Your thesis, which will be the last sentence in your introduction, is the position you reach after carefully reading Friedman’s article; the paper is the explanation and support of your position.

Sample Thesis Statements

For instance, if you disagree with Friedman, you might argue that even though Friedman makes a good case for using popular culture in the first-year writing classroom, the case for focusing only on the study of writing and language in those classes is stronger because __________________________________. Then, following the map of this particular thesis, your paper would have to explain Friedman’s case, and at the same time, establish the case against Friedman by refuting her argument and asserting your own.

Or maybe you agree with Friedman. Your thesis might state that Friedman’s case for using popular culture in the first-year writing classroom makes more sense than ignoring popular culture because ________________________________________. By agreeing, though, you don’t dodge the effort of analysis. You must bring in your own reasoning to corroborate Friedman’s argument; you should have plenty of material from your notes over the last two weeks to help you in this regard. Avoid simply summarizing. Show why you agree.

Maybe you agree with some things and disagree with others. In this case, you might state in your thesis that while Friedman is correct about _____________ because ______________, she is mistaken about ____________ because ____________________________. In this paper, you would follow the same pattern of explaining Friedman’s views as well as your own.

Organization

This paper needs a proper introduction and thesis, as it is a standard, academic paper. In your introduction you should introduce Friedman and her article in the first sentence, and then in several sentences after that, you should offer a summary of the article. Then, you should transition into the last sentence of the introduction, which is your thesis statement.

Moving through the paper, be sure to use the topic sentence of each body paragraph to clarify and develop your thesis. Within each body paragraph, use Friedman at least twice in order to develop and support your ideas. In addition to paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting Friedman (and, remember, you should quote sparingly), you should carefully integrate your analysis of Friedman and your own examples and details.

In the last paragraph (the conclusion), you should sum up the essence of your position, remind readers of the major steps in your argument, and offer a suggestion for readers who would like to pursue this argument beyond this paper. Is there an article they could read? A book? A YouTube video? Give them something that will enhance their understanding beyond your paper.

Development

It’s crucial that you incorporate paraphrases, summary, and quotes in this paper. You’ve been collecting them for two weeks, so you should have a lot to draw on. Feel free to use any notes that you’ve taken while responding to the article. Everything you’ve worked on for the last two weeks has been to prepare you for this paper, so use what you’ve previously written in your notes for this assignment.

Students often flounder in this area of this particular assignment, so I’m going to give you some advice: remember that you are writing about what is to happen in a writing course! With that in mind, you should provide specifics related to a writing course. Provide a specific assignment, discuss how it would achieve what you say it would, examine what teachers would do with the assignment, and explain how students would learn from it. Don’t rely on generalizations. Here’s an example. Let’s say that I agree with Friedman in my paper, so I decide to talk about how using pop culture keeps students engages and leads to deeper learning. I would need to show that theory in action. Perhaps I suggest that a class use Wonder Woman as a theme for the semester, and then for one assignment, a teacher could divide students into four groups. The class would watch five minutes of footage from the Wonder Woman TV show from the 70s and then five minutes of footage from the movie from a few years ago. Each group would then write a paragraph together exploring the similarities and differences between the two portrayals of Wonder Woman. Afterward, the teacher could have a leader from each group present its findings, and the class could then discuss and analyze as a whole. Such an exercise would get students involved and interested in a topic and help them prepare to write a better paper, as a result.

The above is an illustration of the kind of detailed examples you should include as you write your paper.

Grammar

In this paper, you will continue to focus on sentence structure and comma usage. Please review any grammar-related comments I left on your first paper. Please edit and proofread closely for obvious errors and typos.

Conciseness

In this paper, you will continue to focus on using strong verbs. Review any previous posted materials posted about conciseness. When you edit and proofread, don’t forget to pay attention to those verbs. Here is a list of strong verbs to use when you are introducing sources and making arguments: Verbs in AP English Academic Discourse (Links to an external site.).

Format

We are using MLA format for this paper, which means that you should cite your source using in-text citation and a Works Cited page. The correct way of doing this is covered extensively in the modules.

In addition to carefully citing Friedman, you should follow these guidelines:

Include header in the upper left: your name, my name, class name, date
Include running header in the upper right: your last name and page number
Center the title at the top of the page
Double-space throughout
Use a standard font
Write at least 1000 words
If you fail to use in-text citation and/or to include a Works Cited page, you will receive a zero. You will submit your paper through Turnitin.com, which is a plagiarism checker. Anyone who violates the plagiarism policy (consult your student handbook and/or the syllabus), will be informed of the violation and given a zero, and then the appropriate disciplinary actions will be taken (see student handbook for details).

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