PLEASE READ THE BOOK THE UNDOCUMENTED AMERICANS
3 sources from the BOOK ONLY
PLEASE READ THE BOOK AND ANSWER THROUGHOLY
place the book in context—who is the author, what audience is she trying to reach and why, and what circumstances prompted her to write;
offer a summary—no more than a page and a half—of what you take to be the author’s main message across the entire text, show how she incorporates that. If you are not sure, think about what the different stories she tells have in common and what purpose she might have in telling them. This is not meant to be an exhaustive enumerating of the points made by the author, or a list of the most relevant or interesting topics, but rather what you see as what the author wants us to take away from the book;
some commentary on what feelings or actions the author hopes her work will inspire and to what purpose;
some evaluative (and possibly constructive) commentary (1-2 pp) on the book. Students will want to consider questions such as:
whether or not (and why) the book succeeds in accurately evoking the experience of undocumented immigrants in the United States today in their daily lives;
whether the author’s tone, rhetorical style, and invocation of personal experiences is effective for her purposes and why or why not;
whether there are problems with the argument or reasoning the author uses;
The student concludes the paper with a summary judgment. Did this book “work” for you or for other types of readers? Why? Is the work relevant for today?
