ESSAY#3 ASSIGNMENT: Write an essay in which you answer the following question:
What should the U.S. do about undocumented or illegal immigration?
Some points to keep in mind as you begin planning this essay:
The most important point to keep in mind when coming up with your thesis is to be focused. Of the three prompts you’ve had for essays in this class, this one is the most open ended. You are free to come up with ANY idea that you think would be a good idea. But you are NOT expected to address every aspect of the immigration issue. You are expected to come up with a single, concrete proposal (claim of policy) that we could do and to argue why this would be a good idea. As always, make sure your thesis statement answers the question: what should we DO about “undocumented” people in the U.S.? Your thesis will be a claim of policy describing some particular action we should take about this issue.
Your proposal can be stated as a positive action — for example, “we should grant citizenship to anyone who has been in this country for 5 years and has a productive job or is in school.” Or you can state your idea in a negative way — for example, “We should not grant citizenship to everyone, but require all immigrants to go through the regular, established process for gaining citizenship.”
Make sure you argue why your particular proposal is a good idea, what benefits your specific proposal will bring about. Dont just argue why immigration in the U.S. is either good or bad in general. Many students in the past who have written on this topic start with a clear thesis about some one thing we could do, but then the body of their essay just talks about why immigrants are good (or bad) for this country in general. Your proposal/thesis is that we DO something in particular, so make sure you have good reasons and evidence that this proposal will be a good idea.
Also, focus on WHY your proposal would be a good idea; dont spend too much time explaining HOW to do it. Keep the discussion about HOW to do it contained in the intro paragraph.
This topic will absolutely require strong EVIDENCE that your idea will be a good thing. Keep in mind, that because this topic is soooooo political, there are a lot of sources out there (on both sides) that should not be trusted. It will be very important that you be skeptical about any information on this topic and be especially careful about using only credible and objective sources. There is A LOT of misinformation and disinformation out there on this issue.
As with essay #2, for this essay, you will need a minimum of three credible outside sources, and one of those must be a source that essentially disagrees with your position or offers an opposing view on the issue. You must bring up and then counter-argue at least one significant point that contradicts or challenges your thesis.
Also, as with essay #2, there will be an annotated bibliography due along with the essay.
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