[English 101 Sample Assignment #3a]

 

 

Essay 3.  Your College Generation: Information and a Point of View

 

 

Panel presentations due as scheduled.

Four copies of the paper for your writing group due at the start of class Tuesday, Oct. 20.

Typed revised draft due to me on Tuesday, Oct. 27.

Length: 4-5 pages of revised, polished writing.

 

You’ve just written a paper that challenges the misconceptions that people may have about a group you belong to.  We’ve also discussed “sales resistance,” which we might define as a careful and critical attitude not only toward products, but also toward commonly accepted ideas. 

 

Now I’d like you to take a careful, critical look at your college generation.  (Let’s define your college generation as the people who entered college between 1999-2003, with special emphasis on your peer group—the first-year students of 2003.)  As a member of a collaborative study group in this class, I want you to gather as much information as you can about one topic that is important to understanding this generation.  We will brainstorm and select these areas in class.  Information can be gathered in the library, on the Internet, through interviews, and by observing the mass media and college life around you.

 

This assignment has two parts:

 

1) As a group, prepare a class presentation on your topic.  This may take the form of a panel, talk show, debate, exercise and discussion, or some other format.  This presentation should be memorable, entertaining, and informative.  It should also take or debate a point of view toward your generation.  (For example: “Do our generation’s buying habits indicate that we are basically materialistic consumers?”  “Is our generation more socially aware than the college students of the eighties or nineties?” “What are the lasing impacts that TV—or fast food or cyberspace--

has had on our generation?”) 

 

2) As an individual, write an essay on the topic you researched for your group.  This should be a paper with an identifiable thesis and relevant supporting details from a variety of sources (not just sources in agreement with your point of view).  The paper will be evaluated for clarity, focus, coherence, development, audience appeal, and relevance to the topic.

 

 

 

Many people want to know more about your generation.  You have already read a marketing report on GenX.  You may already be aware that UNR does research on each of its entering classes, trying to characterize you as a group so that they can predict and serve your needs more effectively.  Other “outsiders” to your generation would like to understand more about your interests and perspectives—always understanding, of course, that you are individuals as well.  So indeed there is an audience for a project like this.

 

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