In a limited self-timed session, using your own thoughts and at least two or more assigned readings (no extra research required, but it is allowed for this “self-timed” essay), write a thoughtful, well-developed essay on one of the following FIVE options. You must have five or more well-developed paragraphs, reaching 750 to 1000 words over 3- to 4 pages in length. Make sure your TYPED/WORD-PROCESSED essay is double-spaced, MLA format, Times New Roman 12-point font, with one-inch margins on all sides. NOTE: YOU DON’T NEED A WORKS CITED PAGE, BUT YOU SHOULD REFER IN YOUR ESSAY TO THE NAME OF THE AUTHOR OR EXPERT OR SOURCE IF YOU USE ADDITIONAL SOURCES. NO ADDITIONAL SOURCES ARE REQUIRED, BUT EACH ESSAY MUST REFER TO TWO OR MORE READINGS ASSIGNED FOR THIS COURSE (IN THE BLUE BOOK OR ARISTOTLE.) For your paragraphs’ support, you may refer to world events, current events, and your own personal experience, but you must also include enough of your chosen authors’ ideas to show that you understand the readings and that you are weighing in expert opinions and historical observations. Direct quotes are not needed, but you may use them, since this an open-book essay. However, be careful of overloading your paper with only quotations or paraphrase of others’ ideas! In short, interlace your own thinking based on the reading and discussions. You will be graded on the following: Argument; clarity and sophistication of your main claim (or thesis); support/development of ideas in body paragraphs and topic sentences/point sentences; overall organization; application of texts. Great essays will make insightful connections. Great essays will expose “ironies” or other kinds of “surprising” information. Word choice (vocabulary) grammar, sentence structure, and punctuation also count some toward your grade.
PROMPT: How effective is ‘cross-cultural’ communication between individuals when it is so challenging in a global world that nonetheless demonstrates differing values and attitudes? Is language ever a tool for peace or progress? Pick a particular context in which to argue your claims about the power and validity of language. That “context” can be any social, political, geo-political, economic, educational, technological, global, generational, cross-cultural, etc. – or any combination of these contexts. In his essay “A World Not Neatly Divided,” Amartya Sen suggests that we embrace our plural identities as a means to better understanding each other. But given the way advertising and niche marketing work, Westerners seem to be increasingly trained to gravitate to the notion of a fixed and “unique” identity. Such identification with what we essentially “are” and “are not” seems to drive markets as well as some individuals’ and families’ traditions and actions. Perhaps using Francis Bacon’s Idol of the Tribe, which posits that some of us will be naturally drawn to seeing similarities, while others will be hell-bent on noting differences, argue whether or not understanding through language — whether spoken or reading– is ever effective for making peace or making progress. Note specific historical or inter-disciplinary instances that show peace and progress are at odds perhaps because of or in spite of language’s inability to ‘pin down’ anything. Somewhere in your assessment of language, you must recall any two assigned texts, whether it is Bacon’s Idols of the Marketplace, which admits of language’s imprecision, or Jared Diamond’s fifth point of collapse, which suggests civilizational collapse could be reversed if we would only read and heed lessons of the past. You may also dip into examples such as the time when the ex-slave Frederick Douglass first acquired the ability to read (and thereby communicate in one way with his oppressors). In this classical example of how language both helps and hurts, we see that his reading not only “enabled [him] to utter [his] thoughts,” this newly acquired form of communication also “brought on another even more painful [difficulty]…. The more [he] read, the more [he] was led to abhor and detest [his] enslavers.” Given our global history of struggles and challenges between cultures, races, and nations, how valuable is language, which gives us the power of defining and redefining anything? If one form of communication can trigger rage and hatred between a people, how can appreciating plural identities or cross-cultural phenomenon make us feel any better, let alone solve real problems? MAIN PART of this PROMPT: In an essay of five or more well-developed paragraphs, reaching 750 to 1000 words over 3- to 4 pages in length [Double-spaced, MLA format, Times New Roman 12-point font], achieve the following tasks: Analyze the power and validity of written and/or spoken language by coupling or contrasting any two or more of our assigned readings. If reading triggers rage in Douglass’s example but figures as part of a workable solution in Diamond’s five-point framework,assess the potential benefits or drawbacks to language as a tool of peace or progress in any particular context that you choose to develop for this essay. Be sure to argue for or against the power of language as tool for peace or progress by creating your support from the very specific contexts provided, suggested, or implied by one or more of our assigned readings or your own reading. Be sure to do this additional task of specific focus, support, and development, knowing you can create your context or support by drawing upon any social, political, global, inter-generational, and cross-cultural conflicts you see in our collective readings, in our news, or in our world.
Use assigned readings listed below