Sticks and stones and other student essays 8th edition

Unit 2: Introduction

Summary & Critical Response In your previous Composition I course, you may have been required to complete a Summary and Strong Response Essay, asking you to summarize and respond to the writing of others, using short examples and anecdotes from our your own lives to support your responses. In Composition II, we take this assignment to a new level. We will be summarizing a more complex and sophisticated piece of writing, and we will then be analyzing it from a critical perspective, determining the successfulness of the author's strategies.

Unit 2: Reading
Though the content is very similar, the specific page numbers of your reading assignment may vary depending on your edition of the textbook.

11th Edition Reading Assignment: The St. Martin's Guide to Writing, Chapter 12, page 500 through the bottom of page 512 (stopping just before the section entitled "Synthesizing"). Also, read "Working at McDonald's," pages 247-250, as this is the article you will be using as the basis of your Summary & Critical Response assignment. 10th Edition Reading Assignment: The St. Martin's Guide to Writing, Chapter 12, page 521 through the bottom of pxage 533 (stopping just before the section entitled "Synthesizing"). Also, read "Working at McDonald's," pages 260-262, as this is the article you will be using as the basis of your Summary & Critical Response assignment. 9th Edition Reading Assignment:

The St. Martin's Guide to Writing, Chapter 12, page 575 through the bottom of page 588 (stopping just before the section entitled "Synthesizing"). Also, read "Working at McDonald's," pages 280-283, as this is the article you will be using as the basis of your Summary & Critical Response assignment. Unit 2: Example
A Sample Summary

The following is an example of how one student summarized the article “Sticks and Stones and Sports Team Names.” (Remember: "Sticks and Stones" is not the article that you will be reading and responding to. However, this example does provide a good example of how to craft summaries in general.)

Summary of “Sticks and Stones and Sports Team Names”

In “Sticks and Stones and Sports Team Names,” Richard Estrada argues that sports teams should not be allowed to continue using ethnic-based names and mascots. Estrada claims that teams such as the Braves, Indians, Seminoles, and Redskins—no matter how established or popular—should change their team names and mascots, which are degrading to Native Americans. He further suggests that the stereotypes accompanying these mascots, such as “tomahawk chops and war chants,” dehumanize and single out Native Americans, setting them aside from the rest of society. “Nobody likes to be trivialized or deprived of his or her dignity,” Estrada asserts, and yet allowing ethnic-based mascots enables—and even promotes—such trivialization. What makes matters worse, according to Estrada, is that such mascots target one of our nation’s least politically powerful ethnic groups. He provides examples of other possible team names based on other ethnic minorities (such as the “New York Jews”), which would never be tolerated in our society. As a result, Estrada concludes that Native Americans should be treated with simple human dignity, just like everyone else. 178 Words

Older Editions:

The page numbers listed above are for the two latest editions of our textbook. The page numbers listed above are for the new 9th edition. If you still have the 8th edition, please read pages 584-598 in Chapter 12, stopping just before the section entitled "Synthesizing." Also, read "Working at McDonald's" on pages 283-286. (7th edition = read pages 583-597. Also, read "Nickel and Dimed," pages 269-273, as this is the article you will be using as the basis of your Summary & Strong Response.)

Unit 2: Assignment -- Summary & Critical Response (Part I)
Major Paper #1—Summary & Critical Response

We will be working on this assignment for the next two units. In this unit, we will focus on the summary. In Unit 3, we will focus on the critical response. The paper will be due at the end of Unit 3.

Purpose:

Most of us use critical reading strategies everyday to effectively process all of the information we are consistently bombarded with. This assignment allows you continue to explore ideas of reading and writing rhetorically, as you will use different strategies to write your summary and your strong response.

The Assignment:

This assignment will have two parts:

In this unit, we will be focusing on Part 1: The Summary.

The Summary

Summarize in 150-200 words the article your instructor has chosen from the assignment. Please use "Working at McDonald's" on pages 247-250 of your 10th edition textbook (or pages 260-262 of your 10th edition textbook, or pages 280-283 of your 9th edition book). In this summary, you should relay the article’s main points, completely and accurately, in your own words. If you find yourself in a situation in which the author’s words needed to be quoted directly (perhaps for emphasis), you must make it clear that these words are the author’s by using quotation marks appropriately. You will not want to quote anything over one sentence in length, and you will want to limit yourself to no more than 2-3 direct quotes, if you use any at all. Remember that the whole point of this portion of the assignment is for you to restate the author’s points objectively in your own words.

In general, I recommend you structure your first sentence something like this:

In "Working at McDonald's," Amitai Etzioni argues that...

This will function as the thesis statement of your summary, so this first sentence will need to convey the main point(s) of the article to give your reader an overall view.

Please be sure to review the Submitting Your Assignment of Unit #3 section for specific instructions on how you should turn in your work for grading. The Summary & Critical Response Essay with both required sections is due at the end of Unit #3. NOTE FOR THOSE WITH OLDER EDITIONS: If you have the 8th edition, please use "Working at McDonald's" on pages 283-286 in the 8th edition. If you have the 7th edition, please use "Nickel and Dimed" on pages 270-273.

Unit 2: Lecture Notes