The American Dream

Karen Gaffney Spring 2020

English Composition II (section 30)

Essay #3 and Essay #4 Assignment

Purpose

So far in this course, we have explored perceptions of socio-economic class status and the relationship between socio-economic class structure, inequality, and the American Dream through a variety of texts. That work has provided us with a foundation to focus on the question: how do these issues relate to education, both K-12 and college?

Essay #3: Create an argument identifying a specific problem related to education and inequality in the US today

Essay #4: Revise your argument in Essay #3 to incorporate your proposed solution to the problem

Identifying a topic

You’ll begin your process of Essay #3 by brainstorming a topic. You might think about how a reading from either of our first two units applies to education. You might be inspired by a reading in the current unit about education. You might be prompted by one of the supplemental readings available in Canvas that all relate to education but are not required reading (see Canvas Module “Suggested Readings on Education for Essays 3 and 4”). Pick a topic that you genuinely care about because that will help fuel the work you’re doing in both Essay 3 and Essay 4. You could focus on how a specific population is affected by inequality in accessing education at a particular education level (homeless college students, LGBT high school students, military veterans in college, elementary schoolchildren in poverty, food insecure college students, etc.). You could focus on a particular issue related to inequality in education (school-to-prison pipeline, standardized testing, legacy admissions, unequal school resources, availability of school counselors, access to technology, cost of college, student loan debt, public funding for higher education, stigma against community college, stigma against trade school, etc.). If you want to focus on how the current health crisis relates to inequality and education, you can certainly do that, though you know yourself best when it comes to whether or not researching the current crisis would unnecessarily increase your stress.

Creating a Research Question

Once you have identified a topic, creating a Research Question about that topic will help you guide your research process and ultimately help you gather enough material to create your argument about the problem you identify. Your Research Question should be clear, arguable, specific, focused, and open-ended in order to avoid simple “yes” or “no” answers. The document “Creating Your Research Question for Essay 3” will guide you through this process.

Writing Essay #3

Essay #3 should present an argument about a specific problem related to inequality and education in the US today that responds to your Research Question. Your thesis should be your overall answer to your question, and then your paper backs up that answer. Your audience are other college students who are not experts in this topic and who have not read or seen your sources. As part of your analysis of this argument, your paper must address, in whatever order you find most effective, the following questions:

What exactly is the specific problem?
How do we know that this is a problem? In other words, what evidence is there to prove that this problem is actually a problem?
Who does this problem impact?
Why do you care about this problem?
Why should your reader care about this problem?

I urge you to use these above questions as your organizational structure, though the order can vary. Avoid structuring your paper source by source because that will be less meaningful to your reader.

Minimum Required Sources for Essay #3 (which means including at minimum one quote per source followed by an in-text citation and an entry on your Works Cited page):

1 assigned or suggested reading for this course (or the film Inequality for All), from any time during the semester
3 sources not assigned or suggested in this course (at least 2 of which must be written sources)
Additional sources may be used
Your sources should be selected thoughtfully using source evaluation. In your paper, introduce your sources clearly and explain the source’s credibility.
Note that the document “Gathering Your Sources for Essay 3” will help you through this process.

Length and formatting requirements:

5 full pages, double-spaced, 1 inch margins, Times New Roman, font size 12, MLA in-text citations, plus a Works Cited page, MLA style

Organizational requirements (for both Essay #3 and Essay #4):

Clear thesis that responds to the assignment, states your argument, and identifies your supporting points
Clear structure that effectively supports your argument; avoid organizing your paper by sources because then it will read too much like a list of summaries and instead consider using the assignment questions as a guide for your structure
Focused topic sentences that introduce your supporting point and link it to your argument. Your topic sentence should be your words, not a quote (save your quotes for the middle of your paragraph). Avoid focusing too much on a source in your topic sentence and instead focus on your idea.
Quote sandwiches (make sure you are bringing in quotes from the texts and analyzing those quotes in depth; in the “sandwich” structure, you would introduce a quote, share the quote, rephrase it in your own words, and connect it to your argument)
Clear introduction where you ease the reader in, introduce background information to lead up to your argument; end your introduction with your thesis (you don’t need to introduce your sources in your introduction – instead introduce them when you need them since your paper is not about your sources but about the problem)
Strong conclusion where you ease the reader out of your argument
Feel free to use “I”

Essay #4

After you submit Essay #3, you will take your research even further and explore new questions that Essay #3 left unanswered, with specific attention to how the problem you identify in Essay #3 might be solved. In writing Essay# 4, you will use what you already submitted for Essay #3, revise it further based on feedback, strengthen the argument, and develop it further by incorporating new sources so that your argument now presents both a problem related to inequality and education as well as your proposed solution to that problem.

This assignment originally required a small step of action on your part, but given the health crisis, I am removing that requirement.

Minimum Required Sources for Essay #4 (which means including at minimum one quote per source followed by an in-text citation and an entry on your Works Cited page):

All of the required sources for Essay #3 are required for Essay #4. You can switch out a source, but you still need to make sure you’re meeting the Essay #3 source requirement.

In addition to the sources for Essay #3, your sources for Essay #4 must also include at minimum one quote per source followed by an in-text citation and an entry on your Works Cited page:

2 scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles (keep in mind that RVCC library’s databases and RVOneSearch can be very helpful here)
1 source of your choice (either assigned in this course or not)
Additional sources may be used
Your sources should be selected thoughtfully using source evaluation. Introduce your sources clearly and explain the source’s credibility.

Length and formatting requirements for Essay #4

8 full pages (including your revision of Essay #3), double-spaced, 1 inch margins, Times New Roman, font size 12, MLA in-text citations, plus a Works Cited page MLA style, plus your action step

Schedule of deadlines for Essay 3 and Essay 4

Essay 3

Draft of Research Question due: By 11:59pm, April 2, upload your Research

Question to Canvas. It should be based on the specific problem you want to focus on for Essay #3. You should upload your question AFTER you go through the To Do Apr. 2 document of directions.

Rough Draft due: By 11:59pm, April 14, uploaded to Canvas (Assignment called Rough

Draft of Essay 3)

Rough Draft requirements:

Introduction with thesis
Most of your support paragraphs (at least 3 full pages, double-spaced)
Support paragraphs should include quotes from the texts, with the majority of your sources being included
Works Cited page

Note: We are not doing any more peer workshops because they’ll be too difficult to organize under the circumstances, and students need flexibility regarding the pace they’ll work at. You can submit your draft early. I will provide feedback as soon as I can in the order that I receive drafts. My feedback will be in the comment section of this assignment. This rough draft assignment will be graded “Complete/Not Complete.” Following through on it will count toward the Process portion of your Essay 3 grade.

Final Draft deadline: uploaded to Canvas by Sun., April 19, 11:59pm

Essay 4

Rough Draft due: By 11:59pm, April 28, uploaded to Canvas (Assignment called Rough

Draft of Essay 4)

Rough Draft requirements:

Revised introduction with revised thesis that includes problem AND solution
Most of your NEW support paragraphs that focus on the SOLUTION
Support paragraphs should include quotes from the texts, with the majority of your new sources being included
At least 3 full pages (double-spaced)
(You don’t need to include your Essay #3 support paragraphs on the problem unless you’ve revised them and want feedback)

Final Draft deadline: uploaded to Canvas by Fri., May 8, 11:59pm

[note that this deadline is extended beyond the earlier deadline of Mon., May 4]

Answer preview…………………

apa 2532 words

The American Dream

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