Essay 4

For your fourth essay, I ask you to write on one of the options listed below.  The required length of the essay is 3 ½ to 5 pages, and a complete rough draft is due at the time of your conference on 30 Nov.  The final draft is due Monday, 3 Dec.  For overall writing strategies and grading criteria, consult your previous essay assignments, especially your first one.
 

Options

1.  Critically evaluate one or more of the articles from The New Millennium Reader that we have read for this segment of the course.  Ways of approaching this option include comparing and contrasting articles that take opposing sides of an issue; “deconstructing” an author’s argument to reveal a hidden bias or political agenda; pointing out a significant counter-claim that the author ignores; and analyzing strengths and/or flaws in an author’s reasoning, tone, word choice, or style.  Keep in mind that your primary goal here, as with Essay 1, is to write a critical analysis of the article as a piece of writing, not simply to reargue the issue that the article addresses.  For instance, if you choose to critique Dyson’s “Cyberspace: If You Don’t Love It, Leave It,” a good thesis might resemble something like, “Dyson uses simplistic and misleading analogies to describe cyberspace, ones that downplay the threats this new environment poses to children.”  A bad thesis would be:  “Cyberspace is a dangerous place that all of us, especially children, should avoid” (since it centers on the issue itself rather than how Dyson argues the issue).

2. Following up on our class discussion last week, write an essay that analyzes some aspect of the aftermath of September 11, 2001, whether personal, cultural, national, or international.   There are a number of possible directions you could take, and if you are interested in this topic, please see me sometime this week so we can narrow down your approach.

3.  Compose a critical analysis of Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams.  Begin with the overall question of whether you liked or disliked the book, and from there, try to understand the reasons behind your opinion.  Why is the book successful or not successful?  Specific issues you might explore include the effectiveness of Lightman’s “translation” of science into imaginative/literary language; the effectiveness of his writing overall (e.g., his word-choice, use of analogies, the organization of chapters, freshness of examples, etc.); or the overall effectiveness of that writing in awakening the reader’s imagination.

4.  Compare and contrast visions of the future in any two works of science fiction, drawn from either books, movies, or television.   Your essay should note key differences and/or similarities among the works, but it must also analyze why these observations are significant.  BAD THESIS: “It is interesting that workers are divided into strict castes in Brave New World and Antz.”  BETTER THESIS: “The monotonous and mechanical nature of work in Antz and Brave New World suggests that our society continues to place economic goals above individual needs.”

5.  Most of our readings in this segment of the course have debated the role technology should play in our lives.  Write an essay that critically examines the role of technology in your education, your daily life, or some combination of both.  Has technology made you smarter, more efficient, better connected to family and friends?  Or do you see your life increasingly overwhelmed by examples of what Robert Samuelson calls “retarded” technology?   Remember to support your analysis with specific, fully developed examples.

6.  How has the way we imagine the future changed over the past ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, or one hundred years?  What did people see when they thought of the future around 1950?  What did they see in 1980?  What might have led to changes in these visions?  Choose a time frame that you find interesting, and then develop and support your discussion with examples drawn from history, literature, or popular entertainment.