Ronnie Coleman option:
Watch the Amazon Prime documentary Ronnie Coleman: The King. Considered to be the greatest bodybuilder of all time, Coleman is now on crutches, faces a lifetime of excruciating pain, must take opioid pain medication, may have to be consigned to a wheelchair, and by most accounts, the abuse he took to become a champion bodybuilder is the reason for his condition. The film celebrates Coleman’s life principle to persist in doing what he loves, but doing what he loves comes with a price: excruciating, life-altering injuries. Is doing what we love worth it? In this context, develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the notion that in order to achieve exceptional success, we are justified to make sacrifices of our bodies, minds, and souls. Is Coleman’s current condition justified by his success and his heroic drive to do what he loves? Had he trained with less intensity, would he even be “Ronnie Coleman”? Is the training intensity that connected him to the Life Force the same intensity that crippled him? In other words, do we really choose our actions or do we do what we do because of psychological determinism? Address these questions and be sure to have a counterargument section. Opponents may point out that Coleman was addicted to his intensity training, that he had a meaning of life crisis, and that he tried to fill the void with bodybuilding greatness. Are there rebuttals to those charges?
1A Essay
I'm back to UBI or Guaranteed Income for 1A because Coates' book had some problems.
Develop a thesis that addresses the claim that Ta-Nehisi Coates’ language-fueled metamorphosis chronicled in his memoir Between the World and Me is an argument for the vital importance of college classes that teach reading, writing, and the humanities. Consider the role of language as a force for the dramatic transformations of Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X. Literacy brings forth the Life Force that transformed Ta-Nehisi Coates, Malcolm X, and Frederick Douglass. These are men who struggle against America’s legacy of racism, a form of oppression that sought to mock, dehumanize, and emasculate them into a subservient role. Read "Learning to Read," a selection from The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
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Addressing the themes in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ memoir Between the World and Me, defend, refute, or complicate the claim that Coates’ book is an argument against those educational prophets of doom who cry that studying reading, writing, and humanities courses in college is a doomed enterprise. You might connect this assignment to the Netflix documentary about the suppression of history. The documentary is titled Descendant. I wonder if Phil Stutz’s tools apply to this assignment. Consider history, identity, self-expression, words and argumentation as power or resistance to power and place this in the context of Frederick Douglass.
1C or 1A:
Support, refute, or complicate the claim that The Atlantic essay “The Coddling of the American Mind,” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, is a failed argument about the supposed spread of snowflake college students who are ruining education and themselves. The failure of this essay, allegedly, rests on poor data, sensationalism, social media tropes, faulty causes, and other fallacies. Further, the dysfunction of young people can not be attributed to trigger warnings and coddling; rather, Jean Twenge’s essay “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” provides a more persuasive cause of young people’s problems. To help in your research, I recommend you listen to the If Books Could Kill podcast, March 9, 2023, titled, “The Coddling of the American Mind.”
1C: Dieting is a fool's errand and is abusive.
Add a third essay: "Will the Ozempic Era Change How We Think About Being Fat and Being Thin?" by Jia Tolentino in The New Yorker
This seems unlikely:
1A or 1C:
Responding to Stephen Marche's essay "The College Essay Is Dead" and Nathan Heller's essay "The End of the English Major," develop an argumentative thesis about what the "free fall" of humanities majors and the spike in STEM majors says about the upheaval in American society.
1A or 1C:
Read David Foster Wallace's boat cruise essay, "Gooseberries" by Chekhov, and "Love People, Not Pleasure" by Arthur C. Brooks and develop an argumentative thesis about the quest for happiness or address the argument that the authors give examples of people's quests for happiness that are rooted in moral depravity and therefore doomed to fail.
1A:
American racism can be taught at school in four different contexts: American exceptionalism, the Lost Cause, Radical Fatalism, and Redemption. Develop an argument that supports, refutes, or complicates the claim that the teaching of racism to encourage redemption is the only viable and moral approach.
1A Replacing Passion:
The Backfire Effect for 3 things (free community college, free housing in parking lot, and UBI: Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the following: Do good intentions in the form of free community college and free parking lot housing for serve the community or have unintended disastrous consequences? Or look at UBI. You could address all 3.
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