English 1A Essay 4 Options & Outlines for Spring 2020
Essay 3 Options Due May 18
To get full credit, you will need a Works Cited page with a minimum of 2 sources.
Option A
See Monica Lewinsky Ted Talk video “The Price of Shame” and John Oliver video on “Public Shaming” and develop an argumentative thesis about what type of shaming is good for society and what kind of shaming cannot be defended. Consult Conor Friedersdorf essay “John Oliver’s Weak Case for Callout Culture.”
Purpose of Shaming:
One. To expose corruption and hypocrisy
Two. To reinforce the community’s shared moral values
Three. To join forces in the fight against injustice
When Shaming Goes Bad:
One. When people join the “Wolf Pack” because shaming excites the adrenaline. Or to mix metaphors, the “sharks smell blood in the water.” It’s feeding time. In this regard, shaming others becomes a sort of mindless addiction completely divorced from critical thinking.
Two. Shaming becomes a form of virtue-signalling, so that we’re showing off how morally righteous we are to our tribe.
Three. Shaming becomes a reflex done without intimate knowledge of the person we’re shaming. We may have inadequate and inaccurate information that we use to inform our judgment. But we don’t care. We’re so eager to judge, we do so without performing our due diligence.
Suggested Outline
Paragraph 1: Since you read about “wolf-pack behavior” in your Jaron Lanier book Ten Reasons to Delete Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, you might begin your essay by defining the way social media brings out our inner wolf as we seek to virtue-signal to our tribe or pack by joining the Outrage Machine in which we shame people of out of existence, what is commonly called Cancel Culture.
Or you could write about someone who was “cancelled” by the social media Outrage Machine as an attention-getter.
Paragraph 2: Transition to your thesis in which you argue for or against the social value of certain types of shaming. Your thesis should address these questions: Does mass shaming perform any social good? Does it reinforce moral values or is it a form of self-indulgent virtue-signalling in which we preach to the already converted choir so that we feel good about ourselves for achieving nothing? When we shame someone, are we the ones who are violating norms of decency, not our targets of outrage?
Paragraphs 3-6 are your supporting paragraphs.
Paragraph 7 is your counterargument-rebuttal.
Paragraph 8 is your conclusion, a powerful restatement of your thesis.
Option B
Read Kajsa Elas Ekman’s essay “All surrogacy is exploitation” and write an argumentative thesis that supports or refutes her claim.
Common Scenario of a Surrogate Business Transaction:
One. Upper middle class couples who didn’t want kids until “late in the game,” like well into their forties, don’t feel complete so they want to “complete the picture” with a child or two, but find that reproduction in their forties or even fifties isn’t exactly smooth sailing.
Two. Powerful people don’t like it when their will is thwarted. They’re used to spending their money to have their way.
Three. A powerful couple uses the body of a financially-challenged young woman in a business transaction for which there are no clear legal protections for both parties. What if the young woman is pregnant with triplets and the parents want her to abort two to increase the survival of one and this doesn’t square with the young woman’s morality.
Four. Powerful couples will go for budget IVF treatments in other countries where the young women are lied to about their pay and where the rich couples will abandon the child if he or she has an affliction like autism or Down's Syndrome.
Five. Often these powerful couples will hire a nanny so they rarely have to see the children they so desperately wanted. This is evidence that having children was part of a game--playing house, curating the perfect life to the public to elevate the couple’s image.
Six. Of course, the above scenarios are both bad and incomplete. We can find lots of exceptions to the above. Surely, there are loving couples who deserve babies. But the underlying problem that remains is that we don’t have laws to protect young women and the children from all the negative scenarios described above.
Paragraph 1: In your introduction you might explain the most common scenario of a surrogate mother: Couple with lots of money approaches a woman with need for money and proposes to rent her womb for the purpose of having a child.
Paragraph 2: For your thesis, you might ask if the above scenario is a perfectly fine business transaction or a business proposal that reeks of gross moral, legal, and pragmatic problems so severe that surrogacy should be banned. Or you might say that there are some conditions that have to be spelled out carefully that make surrogacy acceptable, but that these scenarios are rare: Most surrogacy situations entail rich people exploiting less rich people. Or you good defend surrogacy as an acceptable business practice between consenting adults.
Paragraphs 3-5 would be your supporting paragraphs.
Paragraph 6 would be your counterargument-rebuttal.
Paragraph 7, your conclusion, would be a powerful restatement of your thesis.
Option C
Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the human inclination for staying within the tribe of sameness as explained in David Brooks’ “People Like Us.” Consult Vice video about social media and tribalism; also consult Brian Klaas video on how tribalism in social media is undermining democracy. Also consult the role of Backfire Effect and tribalism.
Sample Outline
Paragraph 1: Outline David Brooks' essay and explain the appeal of tribalism, that is to say living in communities of "people just like us."
Paragraph 2: Transition to your thesis: Argue that while tribalism offers comfort and belonging, one must face that tribalism is larded with liabilities that compel us to reject tribalism in favor of cosmopolitanism, the belief that we are members of the world, not a closed tribe.
Paragraphs 3-6: Analyze the liabilities of tribalism.
Paragraph 7: Counterargument-rebuttal
Paragraph 8: Powerful restatement of your thesis for conclusion to achieve pathos.
Option D
Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the claim that community college should be free. Be sure to have a counterargument section. For research, use Rahm Emanuel’s “A Simple Proposition to Revive the American Dream” and Jay Mathews’ “Maybe tuition-free community college comes at too high a price” and any other relevant sources such as “Here’s the downside of making community college free” by Bruce Sacerdote, “Community College ‘free-for-all’: Why making tuition free would be complicated,” by Dick Statz, “Economists find free community college can backfire” by Jill Barshay, “When Community College Is Free,” by Juan Salgado, “For community colleges, free college has its costs,” by Liz Farmer, and “The potential disaster of free community college” by Biana Quilantan.
Sample Essay Outline for "Should College be Free?"
Paragraph 1, Introduce the crisis of college education costs pricing struggling people out of a necessary education and the proposal by some to offer free community college.
Paragraph 2, Transition to a thesis that argues for or against free community college with 3 supporting reasons.
Paragraphs 3-5 are supporting paragraphs.
Paragraphs 6 and 7 are separate rebuttal-counterargument paragraphs
Paragraph 8: conclusion is powerful restatement of thesis
Paragraph 8, your conclusion, is a powerful restatement of your thesis.
Option E
Read Harlan Coben’s argument from “The Undercover Parent” and argue if spyware is a reasonable and compelling safety measure that parents may need to use for their children’s computers. Be sure to have a counterargument-rebuttal section.
Sample Outline
Paragraph 1: For your introduction, summarize Coben’s argument.
Paragraph 2: Your thesis would support or refute Coben’s argument.
Paragraphs 3-5 would be your supporting arguments.
Paragraph 6 would be your counterargument-rebuttal.
Paragraph 7 would be a powerful restatement of your thesis for your conclusion.
McMahon's Thesis (I used to agree with Coben about 5 years ago, but over time, I have come to disagree with him)
While I would be tempted to put spyware on my daughters' computers as a way of repelling predators, I would not do so, as Coben advocates, for several reasons. One, the spyware might lull me into a false comfort and impede me from communicating with my daughters about the dangers of indiscreet internet activities; two, if I violated my daughters' trust, I may compel them to turn away from me, and find more insidious ways to do internet communications that jailbreak my spyware; third, a prison-like security environment in my daughters' internet landscape strikes me as the kind of overkill that overprotective fathers use who alienate their children.
April 27 Essay #3 due on turnitin. See Monica Lewinsky Ted Talk video “The Price of Shame” and John Oliver video on “Public Shaming” and develop an argumentative thesis about what type of shaming is good for society and what kind of shaming cannot be defended.Homework #14: Read Kajsa Elas Ekman’s essay “All surrogacy is exploitation” and in 200 words explain why surrogacy should be banned.
April 29 Will will go over surrogacy debate. Homework #15: Read David Brooks’ Atlantic essay “People Like Us” and explain why we gravitate people who share our values.
May 4 We will go over “People Like Us” and watch two videos about social media and tribalism from Vice News and Brian Klaas. If we have time, we will go over surrogacy essay topic. Homework #16: Write 200-word paragraph that explains the free community college debate covered by Rahm Emanuel’s “A Simple Proposition to Revive the American Dream” and Jay Mathews’ “Maybe tuition-free community college comes at too high a price.”
May 6 Go over free community college debate. Your homework #17 for next class is to read Harlan Coben’s argument from “The Undercover Parent” and in 200 words argue if spyware is a reasonable and compelling safety measure that parents may need to use for their children’s computers. Homework #18 is to read P-2 Semicolons and take the practice tests. Explain your confidence in using semicolons.
May 11 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write first half of your essay. Go over Homework #18. Your Homework #19: Read P-5 Quotation Marks, take the 5 Practice Tests, report your scores, and explain your confidence level.
May 13 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write second half of your essay. Go over Homework #19.
May 18 Essay 4 Due on Turnitin.