TASK: In this essay, you will use a minimum of four course texts to construct an argument of your own within the context of those texts. In other words, you will have a clear argumentative thesis statement that represents your own claim in relation to other authors writing about the same topic. The ″They Say″ will be the conversation on this topic or one of the articles in particular that you are responding directly to and you will add in your own claims regarding the topic to that conversation. In your concluding section, you should give consideration to what we, as scholars, should take away from this debate. What is the “So what? Who cares?” for your reader? METHOD: You should spend time in and out of class considering the authors and texts we read and how they all relate to one another, thinking deeply about the topic, and deciding what position you’d like to take in relation to the other academic discourse on this topic. Do not jump in quickly to a simplistic opinion-based position—let your critical analysis of our course texts guide you to your position. You should not add any other types of information other than the course texts and your responses to them. You will need evidence to back up any opinion you have and it must come from the course texts. No outside research is required.
