Assignment: Audience for this assignment: Generally educated readers familiar with Bragg's story we've read.
Task: Write a developed paragraph in response to the following "Questions." Please read the questions very carefully. It is impossible to write an effective paragraph unless you have a full understanding of what you are asked to focus on.
How do you respond to the phrase, "getting above your raising"? Is it a good thing, something to aim for, or is it something to be afraid of or ashamed of? Explain your response; support your response by logical reasoning, by using what you read and learned in Rick Bragg's writing,and/ or by relating an experience you had or you witnessed.
1. Please do not retell the story. Retelling or summarizing the story will lead to no credit for this assignment.
2. Please do not turn this assignment to a personal story of yours; doing so will not gain a passing grade.
3. Do not put a title - it is not an essay.)
Expectations / Requirements:
• It is a fully developed paragraph. The minimum length requirement is about 150 words.
• It should demonstrate your understanding of the social class issues we discussed; it should show application of what have studied about paragraph writing conventions (paragraph topic sentence, paragraph development, and coherence...). There is no need to summarize the whole story-see "Audience" above; relevant details in the story may be used to support your own point of view.
• It should be relatively free of surface errors, particularly comma splice, run-on and fragmented sentences, regarding compound and complex sentence types.
• It must be typed and double-spaced. Put your name and specific class on the upper left side of the first page.
Topic Sentence and Outline Due Date: A penalty of 20% off the grade of the paper will be applied if you fail to bring these. An effective T. S. is crucial to a successful paragraph and requires lots of time thinking and rewriting; we will share, revise, and evaluate the Topic Sentence you've composed. Make sure you are able to articulate, to the rest of the group, how the T. S. controls and informs the content and its movement in the paragraph (an outline of the paragraph may be very helpful at this stage for your readers).
Definition of Topic Sentence: A topic sentence shows the writer's attitude or opinion of a subjcet (or "topic"). It can also be called "paragraph main idea" or "central idea." It is not factual but arguable - meant to be supported and developed by the rest of the paragraph.