Friday, February 27th--7:45 pm

Greetings, below you will find the out of class essay assignment #2, which was distributed and discussed at length in class on Wednesday. Have a good and safe weekend.

English 20

C. Fraga

Spring 2015

OUT OF CLASS ESSAY ASSIGNMENT #2

Assigned:  Wednesday, February 25

Optional Rough Draft due no later than: Monday, March 16

FINAL DRAFT due: Wednesday, April 1

Details/Requirements:

1. Follow MLA format for the set-up of your essay and for your documentation of sources. Your thesis must be specific, articulate and assertive.

2. A minimum of 5 outside sources on your Works Cited page. If you utilize personal interviews, be sure there are not MORE interviews than resources from professional and/or academic publications. The best place to start is the home page of the Sacramento State Library. By this time in your college career, you should be very familiar with the AMAZING databases available to you, just a click away!

3. Please, no Wikipedia or encyclopedias as primary sources

4. No formulaic, 5 paragraph essay. Ever.

ESSAY PROMPT:

Among many issues, the series Breaking Bad suggests three themes/topics:

·      incarceration

·      illegal drug abuse

·      terminal illness

These topics, of course, are very encompassing. Your task is to select one of the three and narrow your focus. You will explore how this issue impacts families. From your research, what do you discover are the MOST challenging aspects facing families dealing with incarceration of a family member; OR dealing with drug abuse of a family member; OR a dealing with the diagnosis of a terminal illness of a family member?

Select the one topic that you are most interested in exploring. You will conduct research (and possibly personal interviews) in order to write an essay that offers the reader a brief background on the topic and makes an assertion about what the most significant challenges are for a family coping with this significant issue, and support your assertions logically and interestingly.

If you wish to focus on the topic that you are familiar with firsthand, that is fine. However, this essay is not a narrative. It is a research and rhetorical analysis essay. In other words, you can certainly utilize personal observations and experiences, but you CANNOT rely on them to in any way be the main supports for your essay.

Remember:  Purpose. Audience. Message. Tone.