Current Events

Instructions: For this assignment you are to prepare and to submit an expository essay of at least 500, but not more than 750, words (about 2 ½ – 3 typed pages) that supports a thesis making an expository (non-argumentative) point of significance to share with an interested audience; your assigned expository structuring mode is classification OR division. Successful essays will be tightly organized, fully exemplified, appropriately documented, and stylishly written per the instructions outlined below. Format and style: Follow the standard three-part academic essay format presented in class today (introduction, body, conclusion), with a specific thesis statement placed at the end of the introduction and with a number of body paragraphs suitable for the length and scope of the assignment (at least 3 but not more than 5), each beginning with a concise topic sentence. Because this is an academic essay, you’ll want to avoid first person (“I”) in favor of third, except for the conclusion if you wish; keep the edification of your audience in mind, and be sure to use a style and tone befitting an academic enterprise. Be sure to consult your Convo as necessary, including the illustration of the assigned MLA heading, spacing, and format. The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is an excellent resource and highly recommended (see Canvas module link). Good expository writing is always informed, and thus will rely upon your familiarity with the subject matter from credible sources, be it from popular news or other media resources, general-interest websites or periodicals, or interviews with credible people with knowledge of the discipline or subject area. Be sure to provide a signal for cited sources within your essay and use quotation marks to indicate direct quotes of material (author’s name and abbreviated source title, additional details if/as useful – e.g., a credentialed scientist, a government official); no separate Works listing is required for this paper’s preliminary use of sources. Two signaled items will suffice. Keep in mind that your primary purpose is to develop a central idea and to express it, and supporting discussion, in clear and correct prose. Topic: The assignment is intended to give you an opportunity to pursue a topic of personal interest to you that you’d like to describe and explain with a focus (expository writing) to an interested audience, derived from the general assigned topic of CURRENT ISSUES AND EVENTS with an emphasis on why a clear understanding of the subject is important. The best approach is to peruse the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, mainstream broadcast news, etc., for a sense of what’s going on that matters to people – Covid epidemiology, Covid restrictions, economic issues, the upcoming election, the BLM protests, the new USPS modifications, for example. Remember that the professional essays that we discuss in class are intended to stimulate your critical thinking and to enhance your analytical skills; they are not models for composition since they are written not for a college composition classroom but for other, identified, audiences in mind.) Any current issues/events topic of interest may be used as a starting point as long as your essay reflects your attentive familiarity with the material covered in class relevant to your topic