Directions
Essay Instructions: In an (typed) essay of at least 900 words, please address all of the questions below. Feel free to treat each question in a separate paragraph. But please do not number the paragraphs according to the question you’re answering, and do not use bullet points to separate the paragraphs. Make it look like an essay: indent the first line when you start a new paragraph.
1. Describe a claim that you have learned as a result of taking this class. Describe it as accurately and precisely as seems necessary. Be sure to identify the source of the claim (where you got it) and be sure to include any support for that claim.
- In general, it’s best to avoid long quotations. If you have to quote, do so only briefly. It’s much more useful to try and render what you’ve learned into your own words.
2. What does the claim suggest about the answer to one (and only one) of the Organizing Questions (in the syllabus)?
3. What is your position on this claim? What, in other words, do you think about it? For example: do you agree or disagree with it? Why? –What specifically is the basis for your agreement or disagreement? (Note: feel free to discuss your own experiences, if that is the basis for your position.) Or, perhaps: do you agree or disagree with it only conditionally? –Again: what specifically is the basis for your position? (Again, your personal experiences are acceptable, here.) What are those conditions? Why?
4. How might your position on the claim be incomplete, or flawed, or perhaps wrong? What, for example, might be an alternative, or alternatives, to your position?
5. What specific questions might you ask of existing scholarship — including, perhaps, one or more of the course readings — that might help you to test your position and help you to solidify, or modify, or abandon it?
Follows directions, including substantively address all questions
Has been proofread and spell-checked
Formatted / structured as an essay written by a scholar
Makes its logic clear via its organization into recognizable sections (paragraphs)
Articulates its main claim(s) in a generalizable form, applicable beyond the particulars of its subject
Supports its claims with specifics and in ways that allow for other scholars to agree/disagree
An essay is communication.
An essay is not:
one long paragraph
freewriting / stream-of-consciousness / something only the author can
easily follow / understand
Organizing Questions
1. Why do people do what they do?
2. Why do people think what they think? (Or, if you like: believe what they believe.)
3. Why do people feel what they feel?
My claim that I made is based on Rondillas reading: Filipino identity in the Pacific is shaped by colonial history and migration, placing Filipinos in a liminal racial position, where they are neither fully accepted as Asian nor Western.
Write this essay based on my claim. Make sure to write in detail and follow the directions because anything left out will result in a lower letter grade. Also, do not forget to answer only one of the organizing questions based on what the directions are asking.
