The purpose for writing this collection of essays is to accurately represent a writer’s ideas, thoughtfully and critically respond to those ideas, and synthesize those ideas into an argument of your own. As suggested by Gary Goshgarian, “a successful argument creates a new position on a familiar topic or offers a position on a fresh topic.” Thus, this portfolio requires you to write an original essay in which you will summarize, analyze, and construct arguments regarding a contemporary controversial issue in our culture.
Getting Started: For this portfolio, you are going to use other critics’ opinions as well as your own ideas to create your own argument on a contemporary controversial issue. For the proposal, a sketch giving your topic and potential outline along with what two texts you will use to support your argument is due. You will then give a brief summary of each text in a single paragraph. In another paragraph, you will explain how each text will support your argument and possible quotes you might use in your essay. In class, we will be reading new articles on Film and TV, the arts as well as short stories. As we read and discuss these articles and stories, you will practice various strategies for summarizing and responding. While performing close readings of these articles, you will want to consider your questions about controversy and what questions the article and the media you choose to analyze raise about the controversial issues in our culture.
Rhetorical Considerations: Your audience is yourself, your instructor, and your classmates. Although your readers are familiar with the texts you’ve chosen, you should thoroughly represent the writers’ main points and provide textual evidence throughout.
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