E1102 Postmodern & Postcolonial Political Writers Argumentative Essay
E1102 Postmodern & Postcolonial Political Writers Argumentative Essay
1. Description
You will write an argumentative essay in which you develop, support, and provide evidence to a well-developed thesis responding to the topics below.
Remember that in any paper you write, you will try to persuade the reader of your point. To do this you must exercise the three appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos. Similarly, persuasion will require you to take a stand, so be sure to have a strong thesis that encourages the reader to adopt your point of view.
In order to support your paper, you must support your arguments with direct quotations. Unsupported statements weaken your argument. Failure to support your statements with direct quotations, even where you show proper knowledge of the material, will not result in a passing grade.
The paper will be 1500 words and will be turned in no later than April 17th in class. I will not read late assignments, but I will be very available to you until then. If you need Office Hours let me know.
2. Grading
This assignment is worth 30% of the overall class grade. I will be grading grammar, spelling, and punctuation judiciously. I recommend that you have someone you know read your paper to see if they understand the arguments made. I will be reading these in close and hurried succession, so do not trust that my patience will be great; if I do not understand what you are saying, it will not be scored. You must use the MLA or APA format, which includes a Works Cited page even if only one book was used. I encourage you to use foreign sources to support your statements.
3. Topics
You are required to answer one of the following prompts or, alternatively, to develop your own topic with my permission. In all cases, make sure your thesis statements are clear and that you support your statements using three (3) texts that we have read and discussed in class. Furthermore, these topics will be more involved, and I recommend that you begin to research early and promptly. These foreign sources must be accredited. Let me know if there are any questions.
-To what extent is language more important for the postmodernist and postcolonial writers than for the modernists? Is language more stable now? Could you connect the issue of language in at least three stories with events happening in our day and age?
-Postmodern and postcolonial ideas thrived in deeply political periods in history. As a result, postmodern writers, perhaps more than the modernists, often encoded political messages in their writing. To what extent do the stories we have read deal with political issues? Would you say that the stories we read in postmodernism are more applicable to life?
-You can come up with your own topic if you run it by me first!
