SSENTIAL NOTE: You may never have written a piece quite like this, so please be sure to pay close

attention to and follow the instructions below. This assignment is NOT asking you to create your own
argument!

In this first larger writing assignment for our course, you will practice your critical thinking, reading, and
writing skills and increase your familiarity with some of the basic elements of arguments by writing an
exploration of arguments and perspectives on a topic and issue question of your choice. For this to be a
useful experience, you’ll want to craft an issue question of genuine interest to you -- and one to which
you do not already feel committed to an answer. You may choose any topic you wish. What matters is
that you isolate a topic and craft a question that you truly want to learn and think more about with an
open, curious, engaged, and analytical mind.

The way I’d like you to approach this piece is to narrate – in first person – your process of exploring
possible answers to a specific issue question, defined in your paper’s introduction, by summarizing,
analyzing, and responding thoughtfully to multiple arguments and perspectives you locate through your
own research on your chosen topic. I ask you to include direct discussion of at least four (4)
argumentative texts/texts that present a distinct perspective that you deem worthy of your attention to
help you think through multiple possible answers to your issue question.

Your final draft of the assignment should accomplish the following:

Introduce your readers to your topic and your issue question, helping them understand the nature of
your interest in and relationship to this topic, and why your issue question matters to you.

You should include your issue question in the form of a question in your introduction/ beginning. You
may find that the end of your introduction is the most logical place for it, but you may not! You decide
where it fits most logically.

In multiple well-developed and logically connected paragraphs, provide a chronological narrative of your
process of locating and studying others’ arguments – as they appear in at least four (4) explicitly
argumentative article-length texts/ texts that offer a distinct perspective – to help you think through
your topic and consider multiple possible answers to your issue question.

Explicitly describe your search process and announce why you selected each argument/text you did.
Beginnings of paragraphs are likely the most logical places to do this: an effective way to launch a
paragraph that focuses on a new argument/text would be to provide a narrative statement that links
where you’ve been in your exploration to where you’re about to go: e.g., “Having considered _____, I
wanted to find a different/more developed/contrasting/etc. answer to my question, so I searched for
_______ and chose ______.” ß Don’t feel you have to use this phrasing word for word!

Provide summary, analysis, and personal response for each of the arguments/texts/perspectives you
explore, devoting at least one paragraph to each one.
Summary: Accurately reconstruct the essential argument of the text, using attributive tags and signal
phrases such as “According to X” and “X claims(ed)/argues(ed)/supports(ed) their primary claim with…”
(<-- Verb tense will depend on whether you use MLA or APA style.)

Analysis: Make observations about how the perspective is presented and seemingly for whom. Note that
this will require you to think about the likely audience for each argument/perspective, based on its place
of publication as well as the assumptions the authors seem to make about the values and beliefs of their
readers. Additionally, make use of our material on logical fallacies, Toulmin terminology, types of issue
questions and claims, and qualifiers to make observations about each argument/perspective.

Personal Response: Include your own thoughts about the argument/perspective: Is it compelling to you?
Why/how? Why not/how not? How has it affected your thinking in relation to your issue question?
What questions has it left you with? Where does thinking about it “leave you” in relation to your issue
question?

Show meaningful connections between arguments/perspectives. Again, the transitions you offer
between sections of your paper, as well as your conclusion, are likely the most logical places to
accomplish this, but you’re not limited to offering such synthesis to just those two places. J

Offer readers a conclusion in which you synthesize (“bring together”) in some meaningful way all the
arguments you explored and reflect on the state of your thinking on your topic and issue question as a
result of this exploration. Are you feeling committed to any particular answer to your issue question that
someone else presented in one of the arguments you explored? If not, why not? Explore where you
finally “land” in relation to your issue question and where you might take your relationship with this
topic and issue question next. Aim to offer truly thoughtful reflection here, and don’t settle for mere
summary of what we’ve already read in the preceding paragraphs.

Give proper credit to all outside resources you discuss in your paper, using either MLA or APA format
(for both in-text citations and your bibliography) and making sure to indicate any direct borrowing of
others’ phrasing through quotation marks. Please use our guide to MLA and APA styles to help you
accomplish this.

Revise, edit and proofread your composition for maximum clarity and power for readers.

*Some notes on process*:

I invite you to see your writing of this piece as an unfolding and evolving process that happens at the
same time as – rather than coming after – your process of researching and reading. In other words,
rather than selecting your resources all at once, before you’ve written about or possibly even read any
of them – as people sometimes do when writing a paper involving “research” – this assignment asks you
to integrate your writing into your reading process. Start by choosing just one promising-looking
resource and write about it very soon after you’ve read it, or even while you’re reading it. Then, use
your writing about that resource to guide your process of selecting your next resource. Repeat this
process until you’re ready to draft your conclusion!

A potentially helpful metaphor: Think of yourself as a frog who has just moved to a new habitat and who
wants to check out the various available lily pads in the pond as potential resting spots. You start by
spending some time on one, and you study the lily pad itself: Is it sturdy? How big is it? Then, you
consider its context: How does it fit into its environment? What’s the view from this one? How does it
feel to you? When you feel satisfied with your consideration of that option, you look around to see
which other lily pads are available to you. You choose one for some particular reason: it’s in the sun, it’s
in the shade, it’s larger or smaller than the one you’re on… there are multiple options, but you choose
one that appeals to you. You leap onto that one, and you repeat the same process with this new lily pad
that you underwent while on the first one, asking the same questions of it as you make observations
about how it compares to the first one. From there, you choose a third lily pad… and then a fourth… and
if you feel you’ve done enough exploring at that point, you stop leaping and reflect on all the places
you’ve been in the pond.

**Analyzing the metaphor: The frog = you as an inquiring mind/student/writer. The habitat = the
discursive world in which we live, full of arguments on every topic imaginable. (Thanks,
WorldWideWeb!) Lily pads = distinct perspectives/positions in relation to your topic and issue question
that exist in published form. Leaping from one lily pad to another = shifting from one argument
/perspective/ development of a position to another. Studying the lily pad = making observations about
each distinct perspective/argument in order to summarize, analyze, and respond to it. Stopping your
leaping process and reflecting = ceasing studying others' arguments and considering how your thoughts
on your topic have been affected and whether you feel you can commit to an answer to your question --
or whether you need to get back to leaping around to consider more points of view.

Whether you edit and proofread as you draft or after you’ve composed an entire draft is up to you. J Just
please make sure that by the time you submit your final draft, you’ve made your writing as reader
friendly as possible.

I hope you’ll have some fun with this assignment, practicing essential critical thinking, reading, and
writing skills as you explore a topic and primary issue question of interest to you