Essay Assignment #3: 

Writing to Understand and Respond to a Text 

First Draft Due October 30th (minimum 3 pages for draft / final paper is a minimum of 5 pages):

(You DO NOT need to bring 4 copies this time; only ONE COPY)

In this paper, you will respond to Michael Moore's “Idiot Nation.” Some of your work, if you did the response assignment and prior reading, is already well on its way. Now that we have had a chance, however, to discuss the reading more thoroughly, you will now expand upon your original thoughts and argument and turn it into a full paper. For this paper assignment, you will focus on one particular argument that Moore makes within his essay and either support or refute the author's viewpoint. 

Assume that your audience is a group of people who disagree with you. So if you're writing in support of Moore's claim, for instance, that the United States is a nation that turns out millions of ignorant students every year [but goes out of its way to remain ignorant and should therefore not be running the world], then pretend you're writing for people who believe that the United States is a nation of intelligent people who should be world leaders. 

NOTE: the overall argument for everyone is going to be whether the U.S. is a nation of idiots (to which you have already responded, so you will definitely be addressing this again in your paper). 

HOWEVER: the particular point that you will focus on is something specific within Moore's essay that explains (in his view) one of the following: 

1. why we are a nation of idiots (to which you could agree or disagree)
2. what the results are (to which you could agree or disagree)
3. what we should DO about it (agree? disagree?)
4. who is to blame (you either agree or disagree with Moore's assessment)
5. how we compare with other nations (agree? disagree?)
6. and so forth . . . (he makes even more arguments within his overall argument

* So, you might (for example) AGREE that we are a "nation of idiots" but DISAGREE with Moore's suggestion that corporate sponsorship is part of the problem of student illiteracy. 

* Or perhaps you AGREE with a lot of what Moore is saying, but question his statistics (and will demonstrate why his statistics are not convincing). 

* Or maybe you AGREE with the author that the federal government is hugely failing when it comes to education, but DISAGREE that we are a "nation of idiots." 

Then again, you may wholey agree and/or disagree with everything that Moore is saying, but you must STILL choose ONE specific point that Moore speaks of to focus on, and fully develop your thoughts regarding that one point.

The special skill you will need to exercise in this essay is the ability to use pieces of a text—along with discerning which quotes to extract (and how)—to support your point of view. Be sure to discuss WHY the examples and quotes you choose from Moore's text backs up your argument or exemplifies your argument. It will be absolutely necessary for you to support your observations and assertions with specific examples of this kind. 

As you can probably see, this assignment involves several kinds of activities and steps of critical thinking. You'll need to clearly understand both the overall claim and the specific claim that you want to agree or disagree with, and you'll need to be able to point to specific passages from the essay where this claim is made most clear. This kind of close “reading” of the text will require you to re-read the essay again and again. 

Again, as you write, imagine yourself addressing a resistant audience. 

** Always, always back up your thoughts with some example, quote, or explanation.