Essay Instructions: In an (typed) essay of at least 600 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.
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- 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?
