English 1101 essay assignments, fall 2013

Paper 1

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

Choose one of the following options and respond in a carefully structured and developed essay of 700-1000 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 directly throughout.

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 quotations 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. I cannot respond to whole drafts through email, but I will be glad to go over your paper from start to finish with you in person before you submit it for grading. If my office hours don't mesh with your schedule, let me know and we'll make arrangements for other times.

I am neither expecting nor encouraging you to use any sources beyond those assigned as readings for this class. Understand that if you bring in quotes from web sources, you will still need to document citations correctly according to the quotations page, but they will not count towards quotation requirements for the assignment.

Note that you must submit the final draft (only) in both hard copy (printed on paper) and in digital form uploaded to the Assignments dropbox for this paper in Brightspace D2L.

Paper proposals: Before you begin writing the essay, construct a topic sentence outline just as we did in the last two writing exercises: 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 the paper proposal assignment page.

Works cited info: For bibliographic information on any readings handouts, such as "My Husband's Nine Wives," e.g., see the referring pages from our schedule of readings and assignments (the pages from which you loaded the Adobe PDF files).

Options:
1) According to many, the American family is falling apart. However, it may be that the family is not disintegrating, but rather is evolving to meet the great social and economic changes of recent decades. In current terminology, what were once called "broken homes" are now often "single-parent households" or "blended families." More often than not, children are raised today either by single parents or in families including step-parents; many children have two separate homes, according to a court-determined division of custody between biological parents. Do you think the family is disintegrating, or is it simply evolving to meet the changing times? Cite any of our readings relevant to this topic, totaling at least three quotations minimum. You may offer quotes in support of the opposing view or in support of your own viewpoint.

2) We have seen how arriving at a comprehensive definition of "family" is difficult. Argue against a definition of family that you find outdated or too limited (or too broad), and offer your own definition encompassing the significant changes in typical family structure over recent decades. While your definition need not deal only with types of families recognized by law and tradition, you must restrict your definition to groups that include one or more parents and children—in other words, your soccer team, your street gang, your AA group, etc. are off limits. Quote from the appropriate class reading(s) on this topic at least three times.

3) Construct an argument on whether today's parents are harming their children with their dramatically increased involvement in their children's lives. Include at least four quotations, total, from either or both articles we read on this topic.

4) Nearly all Americans would agree that marriage "ain't what it used to be." Including at least three quotations from our class's readings in The Little, Brown Reader, construct an argument debating the question of whether marriage should no longer be considered a lifelong commitment.

5) Develop an argument on the issue of whether plural marriage (polygamy) is more beneficial for women than monogamous marriage. Quote Elizabeth Joseph's article at least three times in your discussion.