Bartholomae, Petrosky and Waite, the editors of your textbook Ways of Reading write, “The purpose of this assignment [on education] is to invite you to step outside a world you may have begun to take for granted, to look at the ways you have been taught and at the unspoken assumptions behind your education.” (677). As a student, the study of the subject of education is a useful one for you, to recognize how this system is said to be situated within a social context, a context often shaped by dichotomies of power and powerlessness. Ken Robinson, in his TED Talk titled, “Changing Education Paradigms” posits the notion that the kind of power dynamic that exists between teacher and student is an antiquated and outdated system, one that squelches the imagination of an individual. The evident ideas of domination, control, submission and acquiescence and its aftermaths are represented within the works of Rodriguez and Anzaldua, texts that Pratt might call autoethnographies, much like the work of Guaman Poma, which give testament to what is lost within “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery or their aftermaths…” (319). Furthermore, Du Bois discusses the life and experience of African Americans in our nation and more specifically within our education system, both as students and as teachers, considering how “the color line” plays a role in curriculum development and representation. Lastly, Miller writes about the first year writing course in college, much like the one you are writing this essay for, as being grounds for shifting from a theory mindset into an action one. In focusing on your own educational experiences, perhaps considering the roles you were cast in within this society, by our culture, and within its institutions, you might also come to some conclusions about what effect this experience may have had on you as an individual.
Your Essay Writing Task
Option 1: Describe what you believe to be the goals of education, both for you and for the institution within which you’ve learned, recognizing the ways in which both you and your educational system have been socially constructed. Your analysis must include a full discussion of how the two aims or goals do and/or do not correlate along with an indication of some of the problems and solutions within the educational system that have been discussed and analyzed within the source material we’ve watched, read, written about and considered in class to illustrate how the gap might be closed or the interaction between the two improved.
Required Sources
1. “How to Tame a Wild” Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua
Of the Wings of Atlanta…Of the Training of Black Men” by W.E.B. Du Bois
3. “The Dark Night of the Soul” by Richard E. Miller
4. “Arts of the Contact Zone” by Mary Louise Pratt
5. “Changing Education Paradigms” Ken Robinson
6. “The Achievement of Desire” by Richard Rodriguez
Criteria for Success
In this essay, you should have:
1. A title of your own choosing that introduces your essay’s topic and content to your reader;
2. 3 – 6 type written pages, following MLA guidelines for formatting in terms of spacing, margins, font size et al;
3. a clear and evident audience and purpose in mind, reflecting consideration of the subject and the message of your essay;
4. an effective use of pathos , ethos and logos , taking into consideration your audience and purpose;
5. a creative introduction that indicates a “hook” of some sort and/or the necessary background information any reader needs to comprehend the topic, your thesis and the remainder of your essay;
6. a thesis that embodies a unifying or controlling idea, which all of your analyses and supporting information refer back to and analyzes;
7. body paragraphs that are ordered in a sensible, meaningful and strategic manner throughout the essay, taking into consideration both your audience and your purpose;
8. body paragraphs that follow the TEA format with
o T: topic sentences which help focus the paragraph , one topic sentence per
paragraph or main idea, preparing the reader for all the ideas discussed within that body paragraph. This is your idea, your inference, conclusion about some aspect of the topic, the “tell me” ;
o E: supporting evidence in the form of at least 4 direct quotes, paraphrases or summaries from the readings, iLearn class discussions, Robinson’s TED talk, your own preliminary writing, or researched material (to exceed no more than two outside sources) which provide the reader with reasons, illustrations, examples, facts, proof. This is the “show me”;
o A: analysis and interpretations that explains the evidence or details that relate back to the topic sentence of the body paragraph and the thesis of the overall essay. This is the “so what?”
9. a conclusion that does more than repeat the information given in the body of the essay, but one that extends the analysis, indicating the next logical step in reasoning that the writer wants the reader to take;
10. fluid sentences that are well-constructed and relatively error free;