Paper 1
Read every word below carefully, more than once, before starting your essay.
Address the topic below 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.
Paper proposals: Before you begin writing the essay, construct a topic sentence outline just as we did in recent 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 the readings handouts, such as "Letting Go" and "Big Mother Is Watching," see the referring pages from our schedule of readings and assignments (the pages where you clicked the link that led you to the user ID and password blanks which gave you access to the Adobe PDF files).
The Topic:
Develop an essay of at least five paragraphs demonstrating how parents today are harming their children with dramatically increased involvement in their children's lives ("paranoid parenting," e.g., or "helicopter parenting). Include at least four quotations, total, from either or both articles we read on this topic.
Make every
topic sentence answer the central question directly.
Introduce all
quotes: see nugget 3.
Sweat
the details: use the Golden Rules, Nuggets, Simple Stuff, and Quotations pages and proofread carefully.
Offer
concrete evidence (quotes) in support of each of your major assertions.
See me in the office
or email if you have questions or problems.
Use the Writing Center! I encourage you to see tutors for help with your papers at the Student Success Center (SSC) and/or the Writing Center. We have well-trained, qualified tutors who can give you plenty of one-on-one attention with any aspect of the writing process. Be sure to take a copy of this assignment with you to any tutoring session, or show your tutor this assignment page on the web.