Response essay

The response essay assignment is due on October 2. It must be submitted through SafeAssign on Blackboard as well as in paper. You are expected to bring to class a complete draft of your essay on September 25.

Choose one of the essays below. Write a four-page argumentative essay that both summarizes the essay you have chosen and responds to it. Essays shorter than three full pages or longer than five pages will be returned unread and ungraded. You must follow one of the following presentation and documentation styles: MLA, APA, or Chicago.

Your essay must use the Times New Roman font, 12-point in size. There must be one-inch (2.5 cm) margins on all four sides of the essay. The essay must have double-spaced lineation. The essay should not have a title page if you are using MLA style. Do not include an abstract page if you are using APA style. The essay should be justified on the left margin only: no full justification. Always include full URLs (or DOIs) in lists of references and works cited (unless using standard academic databases).

You can consult the Purdue Online Writing Lab for information about using MLA, APA, and Chicago (CMOS) formats. Note, however, that the Purdue Online Writing Lab is not the final authority on these issues.

Your essay is an argumentative essay with a summary component. Your summary of the essay must be substantial and accurate. You must clearly identify the main argument and the secondary points of the argument of the essay you have chosen. You should identify the ways the various components of the argument fit together. You should identify the main ways the argument supports its claims. Your summary cannot use more than two short direct quotations from the essay.

The response component needs to respond to the essay directly. Your thesis for the entire essay will represent the main aspect of your response. You are not writing your own essay on a similar topic as the essay you have chosen, but instead you are interacting with the essay. Is there something said in the essay with which you want to take issue? Ultimately, you are making clear whether you agree or disagree with the argument of the essay (and its various components) and explaining why.

Your personal opinions about the topic the essay treats should be kept out of your essay until one of the final paragraphs. Your personal opinions about the argument of the essay form the basis for your response.

Here is one way of writing your essay. You can follow this, though you do not have to; you can use it as a general guideline.

• Your introductory paragraph clearly explains what your essay will talk about. It includes a thesis: what your essay will ultimately be arguing.
• The next two paragraphs are devoted to a summary of the essay you have chosen. The first of the paragraphs provides an overview of the essay, stating the essay’s main argument and touching on the main secondary arguments. The second paragraph of the summary will summarize in more detail one or two of the secondary arguments of the essay, especially those that your essay will then address.
• The next two or three paragraphs are devoted to your response to the essay. You will talk about the arguments you have outlined and explain your own attitude towards them (as they are expressed by the writer). You can agree and/or disagree. You can talk about elements of the essay’s arguments that are strong or weak. You can point to problems with the essay and even things the essay should have taken into account for a better argument.
• You can, in no more than one paragraph, outline your own stance on the topic raised by the essay.
• Your final paragraph is a conclusion. The conclusion does not just restate what your essay has already said: it should conclude something. This is a good place to reflect on what your essay has said and how strongly you were able to make your own points. This is also a good place to explain your own attitudes towards the topic of the essay to which you are responding. (Avoid too personal a tone in doing so.)

Penalty: 10 points if there is no bibliography / list of references / works cited.
Penalty: 2 points if the margins are incorrect.
Penalty: 2 points if the font (type and/or size) is incorrect.
Penalty: 2 points if the lineation (spacing between lines) is incorrect.
Penalty: 1 point if one or more paragraphs are not indented properly.
Penalty: 2 points for two or more errors with indicating titles in the text.
Penalty: up to 5 points for poor adherence to one of the style guides for the presentation of the essay.
Penalty: up to 5 points for poor adherence to one of the style guides for the presentation/format of the bibliography / list of references / works cited.

Here is the list of essays from which you must choose one. Note that they are all opinion editorial (op-ed) essays: they express opinions and are thus necessarily biassed.

• The Editorial Board. “A Plan to Diversify New York’s Segregated Schools.”
• Freeman, Hadley. “Breast v Bottle? Motherhood Is Messy Enough without Picking Sides.”
• Hinsliff, Gaby. “Shop Less, Live More – Save the Planet. It Doesn’t Sound That Bad to Me.”
• Littman, Michael. “‘Rise of the Machines’ Is Not a Likely Future.” “They Say / I Say”, pp. 256-60. (Include the original publication information, from Live Science, as well in your bibliography.)
• Moloney, Kieran. “We Need to Rethink Student Loans across This Country.”
• Scott, Doug. “Keep Bikes off Our Wilderness Trails.”
• Teitel, Emma. “Teachers Don’t Need Tests but Maybe Doug Ford’s Government Should Have to Pass a Few.”