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Creating a Conversation: Moving from a Summary and Response to a Position Essay Congrats — you have reached the last major assignment of the semester! At this point in the semester you have written narrative, analytic, and compare/contrast essays. Additionally, you have strengthened your reading skills immensely. For the final formal assignment of the semester you will be bringing these skills together by creating a conversation between your views and those of another author.
To begin this assignment we will be reading and discussing several short essays as a class. You will choose the essay you would like to respond to and you will write a key point summary of the author’s views. You will then write a separate response to the summary you wrote. Lastly, you will be writing an essay that creates a conversation between the views within the essay you read and your response to those views. Your essay will be guided by a short prompt that asks you to consider a question in regard to the topic within the essay you read.
Writing Due Dates – November 3rd – Summary Due (one-page typed)*50 points (Writing Response in Class) November 10th – Essay Due for Workshop (3-page min. , 3-copies)*50 points November 17th – Polished Draft of Essay Due (3-page minimum)*100 points Essays and Prompts – 1- “What is Crime? ” by, Lawrence M. Friedman (p. 435) Prompt #2 (p. 438) 2- “Building Baby from the Genes Up” by, Ronald M. Green (p. 546) Prompt #1 (p. 551) 3- “In Defense of Dangerous Ideas” by, Steven Pinker (p. 46) Prompt #1 (p. 356) 4- “Condemn the Crime, Not the Person” by, June Tangney (p. 566) Prompt #1 or #2 (p. 575) 5- “Shame is Worth a Try” by, Dan M. Kahan (p. 571) Prompt #1 or #2 (p. 575) *You may use essays #4 and #5 together if you like. The essays offer two sides of one topic – this will allow you to strengthen your compare/contrast writing skills.