Goal
This essay assignment provides you with an opportunity to learn and practice outside research skills and effectively weave outside voices into your own writing. You will also continue to practice critical thinking, analytical, and narrative/descriptive skills, and focus on how exploratory writing can generate a question or problem-driven essay rather than an argument-driven essay.
Assignment
Using Adam Gopnik’s “Bumping Into Mr. Ravioli” as a model, write a narrative essay that uses research to explore a question(s) that you are curious about and represent an intellectual journey. Just as Gopnik uses his interactions with his daughter as a narrative grounding, your essay should include some kind of narrative moment(s) from your own life as launching points for exploration and questioning. Then use the research techniques we will discuss in class to investigate these questions and dive into the complexities of your topic.
Your essay need not have any clear-cut answers to the questions you explore, nor need it have an argument or “thesis statement” to guide its direction. You should begin with a puzzle or problem that interests you and take the reader along an intellectual journey with you that includes research, critical analysis, and reflection. The topic you choose should be one that you are intellectually invested in, have some kind of personal connection to, and should be complex enough to merit a paper of this length.
For example, I am a huge fan of comic books, and enjoy reading the adventures of many of my favorite super-heroes. After some research, reflection, and thorough critical thinking, I could begin to get at “bigger” or “deeper” questions, such as why super-heroes appeal to us, the value of comics as an art form, or even issues of sexism within super-hero comics.
Specifications
The essay will be no fewer than five full, double-spaced pages (12-point Times New Roman Font, with one-inch margins on all sides). This is an absolute MINIMUM. Anything less will be penalized, and I highly encourage you to write more than this. You will find and quote from at least five credible outside sources (no Wikipedia!) using a balance of quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing. You will also include an MLA-formatted works cited page at the end of your paper.
