critical reading, thinking, and writing skills

Essay 4 Prompt Formatting and Guidelines

• MLA heading and guidelines, including work cited page • Times New Roman, 12pt Font, 1-inch margins • 4 to 5 double-spaced pages (not including the work cited page) • Due Tuesday Feb. 13 for peer review—bring three copies to class and submit a

complete draft via Canvas • Due Thursday Feb. 15 (Final Draft) submitted via Canvas by start of class

o This is also the day of the Final Exam and the day ALL LATE Essays are due. • Since this is due the last day of class, No Late Submissions are accepted

Assignment Goals

• Writing text-based arguments (text-centered, specific, debatable, justifies discussion, answers the “so what?” question)

• Demonstrate effective and thorough academic research • Thorough analysis of evidence from primary and secondary sources • Avoids vague ideas, summary, description, and focus on purely surface details and plot • Structure and Organization, including introduction, conclusion, transition/topic

sentences, and paragraph structure • Appropriate use of MLA formatting including in-text citation and work cited page • Demonstrating critical thinking, reading, and analytical skills and overall grammatical

clarity • Detailed and focused revision from an initial draft

Your final assignment is to revise either Essay 1 or Essay 2 into a polished final paper that demonstrates the critical reading, thinking, and writing skills we’ve developed over the term. Keep in mind, instructor comments are not the only factor that should guide your revision. Think of the original submission as a “rough draft,” and for this assignment you will retroactively apply all our course lessons and learning goals, in addition to instructor and peer comments. The final essay is longer than the earlier draft so you are not just “fixing” minor problems, but also strengthening and elaborating on the argument, stakes, evidence, and analysis. Part of the challenge will be to include three secondary academic sources from scholarly journals. If the original draft already has a source (such as Essay 2), you may keep it or substitute a new one, but the essay must have three secondary sources total. You must include a Work Cited page that documents these sources in following appropriate MLA guidelines. Evaluation

• Meets basic requirements (length, structure, organization) • Success meeting the assignment goals • Worth 150 points, 50 points for peer review, 100 points for the final draft • 20% of overall class grade