ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTION
Analysis of two pieces of professional writing arguing a cohesive thesis
3-4 pages (1000-1250 words) in MLA format
Works Cited required (not counted toward page count)
SOURCES/READING LIST
“Serving in Florida” by Barbara Ehrinreich
“On Dumpster Diving” by Lars Eighner
INTRODUCTION
For this essay you will be reading two professional essays and responding to them in a cohesive, argumentative essay of your own.
This essay must be thesis-driven, which means it cannot simply be a summary. Please be sure you are directly responding to the prompt, which is below. This is a literary analysis essay, which means the source material is the focal point and should feature heavily in your writing.
ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS and PROMPT
Please answer the following prompt in an organized, formal academic essay:
After reading the assigned essays, write an essay in which you make an argument about the nature of capitalism, work, power, or money in the United States. Use your reading of the essays to help you form an argument that can then be supported or illustrated through the use of examples from those essays. In essence, you are synthesizing the arguments from the source material in your own academic argument.
You are only required to use these two essays as your source material. No outside sources are appropriate for this essay. Use only what has been assigned. This is a literary analysis essay, so make the literature the star.
As a pre-writing exercise consider your own experience or your own preconceptions about work, money, poverty, and capitalism. Remember, however, that these are not personal experience essays, so your history should not be a part of the final product.
