Writing Task Three

English 100 – Task Three:  Blending Reading and Writing

Issue:  Education

Overview of Purposes:  Take part in today’s conversation about the American education system. What you will do:

• Develop and demonstrate the ability to blend reading and writing activities. 
• Produce well-supported and thoughtful discussions (both oral and written) of serious issues.
• Incorporate the words of others into your own writing. 
• Learn MLA documentation skills.
• Strengthen your reading, writing and editing skills.

Reading Assignment:  The readings in this section will be vital to your success with this task and this section will emphasize critical reading more than any task to date. You will read Savage Inequalities:  

Children in America’s Schools written by Jonathan Kozol and various essays in your textbook. You will write journal entries (summary and response analysis) and discuss these readings in class. It will be very important or interesting to you to mark and record passages, ideas or experiences that seem particularly important or interesting to you, so that you can refer back to them during class discussion and throughout the writing process. It will be vital that you have a clear understanding of each reading and the perspective that each of these readings offers because you must use (at least) one of these essays as the foundation for your writing assignment.

Writing Assignment:  Why did you decide to come to college? What does a college degree mean to you and to American society? What is your definition of learning and education? Is your definition of learning and education the same as other people’s definitions? What is the role of student and teacher? Do you ever reflect upon your experiences to high school and college? Do you think your experiences in high school and college are similar or different from other people’s experiences? Do you think our education system is effective or do you think changes need to be made? What do you think about testing, grading and funding in your schools? Would you like to explore the problems in our educational system and provide your own opinions and solutions?

These are some of the questions that frame today’s lively and critical conversation about American society and its education system and they may be some of the questions you wish to address in Task Three. For this assignment, you will reflect upon your experiences in school and/or opinions about education and establish a link between your own experiences and opinions and one or more of the essays and/or books that you have read in class and in workshop. You will adhere to the following guidelines:

Getting started:

• Reflect upon your own experiences and opinions regarding education and knowledge. Then, review and reflect upon the essays. Do you agree or disagree with one (or more) of the authors? Have you and one (or more) of the authors shared a similar experience? OR do you strongly disagree with one of the authors? Has your experience conflicted with one (or more) of the author’s experience?

Introduction:

• Create a thoughtful and specific thesis that establishes a link between the essay(s) and your own life and own views on education and learning. Provide title(s) and author(s) in thesis. Your thesis will be a claim or argument that you will set out to prove in your essay.

Body paragraphs:

• Body paragraphs will be unified, cohesive and developed. Support your opinion/thesis throughout body paragraphs with relevant, persuasive and effective material and information (e.g. personal experience, anecdotes, examples, materials from the readings). Incorporate someone else’s experiences and point of view in your own writing and explain how it supports and strengthens your point of view. You will use summary, paraphrase and direct quotes. Find a balance between your opinion, experiences and voice and that of the author(s) of the essay(s). Assume that your reader has not read the essays that you have, so be sure to include enough about the essays you choose in order for your reader(s) are able to grasp the meaning of those essays.

Conclusion:

• Create an interesting and strong conclusion that gives a sense of closure.

Documentation:

• Document your use of borrowed material according to MLA guidelines (e.g. parenthetical documentation within text and a works cited page at the end).

Editing and proofreading:

• Editing and proofreading skills will be crucial to this writing assignment. Sentence structure and grammar will be correct; sentences will be more varied and complex; surface errors will be minimal.

Requirements:  this writing task will focus heavily on organization, structure and development of thought. This writing assignment must be word-processed, spell-checked, well-edited, at least three full pages in length and must adhere to MLA guidelines. You must also extensively use at least one of the essays from the textbook as a source.

* If you do not meet all of the above requirements, you will not pass this writing assignment.

* This task is the most difficult of this course because it asks you to critically think, read and write about a very complex and important issue in our American society. Moreover, you will be producing more written work for this section. Make sure that you give yourself enough time for the reading, writing and revising assignments in this section.