three 750 word essays

 Writing assignment #2

Talking Voice and Writing Arguments and Strategies for Writing Academic Arguments

ENG 122

Interaction – Page 7 of 8

Complete the following on pages 89-90: Exploration 1 and Exploration 2. Choose three of the literary works to read, and base your responses to questions a-d upon your choices. Develop your responses to questions a-d into a full-length essay (no less than 750 words) that includes at least one example from each literary work.

Writing assignment #4

Chapter  7 – pages 385-386

Chapter Activities and Topics for Writing Assignments

Question 3.  In her book The Perfect Vehicle: What Is It about Motorcycles, Melissa Holbrook Pierson says,

                Our aim . . . it seems [is] to accumulate goods.  At the end of this metaphoric road stands the non-metamorphic Kmart, glistening like Oz and filled to the rafters with a hundred cheap mementos of wildflowers, in forms of candle, air freshener, sachet, cologne, bath bead, potpourri, and incense stick.  In its prior life, of course, the ground under the big store bloomed with wildflowers.

                                (Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Perfect Vehicle: What Is It About Motorcycles (New   

            York: Norton, 1997) 153. Print.

What is our personal responsibility toward the natural word, toward what we term ournatural resources  What power do we have to influence events?  Of course, the word resources implies something to be used, yet how far do we go? Read about the conflicts between jobs and the environment that have been prominent in this country. Does the need to preserve age-old redwood forests outweigh loggers’ needs for paychecks in California? Are fish in the Gulf of Mexico more important than jobs for the commercial fishermen living along the coast?  Are offshore and deepwater drilling for oil more important than either the commercial fisheries industry or coastal tourism?  Conflicts such as these are often settled in the courts.  Read about one of these or a similar conflict, and, as you read, create a list of emotionally charged diction used by both sides (literature suggestions: Abbey’s “Eco-Defense,” “Dillards’ “The Present,” Huxley’s “Time and the Machine”).

Week 3 Writing Assignment

Review the Strategy Questions for Organizing Your Argument Essay in Chapter 4, and then write a 1000-word response to Chapter Activity #5 at the end of Chapter 6. In doing so, consider the Saint Leo University core values emphasized in this course, Excellence and Integrity. Incorporate into your discussion of a hero either core value, including your own definition and its relationship to the topic.  

You are encouraged to complete a first draft of the assignment then revise your work.

5. What is a hero?  How do others define this concept?  How do you define it?  Think about some of the characters in the selections you have just read; do they fit a definition of “hero”? Think about real people you have encountered in your life; do any of them fit the definition? How does a hero relate to his or her society?  Broaden your understanding of a hero by reading the short selection “from Bodega Dreams” (page 179), the poem “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane” (page 194), and the essay “The Train from Hate” (page 223).  Do some library research in order to extend your understanding of the concept of hero.  Now create your own definition.  Support your argument with evidence from your library research, persona; experience, and specific examples from your reading in this chapter.