Designing a Successful Assignment Sequence
by Hyunyoung Cho
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| Among the handouts that I gave out over the semester,
assignments had the biggest influence on students’ writing. Students
made sure to get a copy of them (which was not necessarily the case
with other handouts), and above all, their papers evidenced the various
marks that the assignments had made on students’ thinking. Many
students used the very quotes cited in the assignment and even directly
cited its wordings. From this I learned that assignments do not just
specify the required work, but they can also be an effective tool
for showing how to raise issues, how to quote, and how to use terminology
that is acceptable in academic writing. For the same reasons, however,
assignments can pose significant challenges to the instructor. In
this paper, I would like to examine the two assignment sequences that
I used for my first semester of teaching writing and I would like
to conclude with suggestions about how to design a successful assignment
sequence. |
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| My first assignment sequence:
learning the limits of didacticism |
Writing assignments and, above all, constructing a sequence of
three assignments requires the instructor’s making connections
among the chosen essays. An instructor’s personal inclination
becomes easily involved even in the process of selecting the essays
out of the thirty or so potential options, since the selection of
the essays already entails a process to make some kind of tentative
connections among them. Then, in actual assignment writing a far
more concentrated level of work is required. Only when the instructor
manages to locate each essay in the context of current critical
discussions and makes meaningful connections between the essays
does he or she generate an acceptable assignment. Paradoxically,
however, coming up with clear-cut connections between the essays
can result in an assignment that implicitly has an expected “correct”
answer to the question. In addition, the implied connections in
the assignments can be interpreted as reflecting the instructor’s
political leanings. Considering the authority and the power that
the instructor wields over the students, it is not surprising that
students easily shape what James Scott calls their “public
performance" to match their teacher's expectations.[1]
When constructing the assignment sequence for my class, I was not
aware of its potential impact on students’ writing. Writing
assignments for the first time, I concentrated on making significant
connections among the essays, simply in order to come up with presentable
assignments. As a result of such unawareness, my first sequence
clearly reflected my personal beliefs and inclinations. This made
it easier for students to express without reservation their tendency
to side with one author over the other in simplified terms, making
one essay their “champion,” and the other their “villain.”[2]
For instance, in the first paper where students were asked to consider
Phillip Angell’s critique of Pollan,[3]
the majority of the students simply accepted Angell’s critique
in a wholesale fashion and criticized Pollan. By looking at the
issue in these black-and-white terms, the students managed to transform
the complicated issue of the biogenetic engineering of food into
something easier for them to tackle. This tendency is further promoted
when they find, or more precisely, when they believe they
have found the instructor’s position on the given issue because,
presumably, now they are definitely on “the right” side.
In such a context, my second assignment proved to be unwise, to
say the least.
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| "While eleven
out of nineteen students supported biotechnology in the first paper,
making Pollan a “villain” who did not understand the seriousness
of current global food crisis, many supporters of biotechnology changed
sides and turned into avid environmentalists in the second paper." |
My second assignment asked students to consider how David Abram
would respond to biotechnology and to explain why he would do so in
relation to the main points of his essay, “The Ecology of Magic.”
Above all, it was a mistake to ask students to speculate on Abram’s
position on the issue of biotechnology. This discouraged students
from presenting their own argument on the issue, but made them look
for the “correct” answer to the question and merely reiterate
Abram’s points. The bigger problem, however, was that the sequencing
of Pollan and Abram encouraged students to adopt what they understood
as my position on the issue, despite my intentions to appear unbiased.
[4] By giving them two pro-environmental essays
in row, I unwittingly betrayed “what I’d like to hear from
them” on the issue and let students determine that it would serve
their best interest to take the hint. While eleven out of nineteen
students supported biotechnology in the first paper, making Pollan
a “villain” who did not understand the seriousness of current
global food crisis, many supporters of biotechnology changed sides
and turned into avid environmentalists in the second paper.[5]
Students who had sided with Pollan in the first paper gained confidence
that they were on the “right” side and, with no consideration
whatsoever of the complexity of the issue, presented unacceptable
“commonplaces” [6] without reservation.
So, for example, Alex concluded her second paper as follows:
No matter how far humans travel with technology they will never
be able to advance the security of nature and the things she has to
offer. God has put nature on earth to help nurture individuals and
He would never allow anything on earth that would endanger the human
species or any other living creatures.
In spite of its remarkable air of finality and authority, this passage
doubly belies that Alex is not an “insider” of the academic
community: not only does the passage reveal her poor understanding
of the text she completely misses Abram’s critique of the epistemological
groundings of orthodox Christianity, but her voice slips into the
“immediately available and realizable voice of authority,”[7]
the voice of a priest giving a sermon to the lay people in the church.
In this case, I suspect, her slippage into such commonplaces was also
engendered by her confidence that she is on the same side with the
instructor, the ultimate “authority” with the “power”
to assign grades. Faced with this kind of paper, I was troubled not
just because many students adopted my position uncritically as well
as incorrectly, but because such an easy “solution” slimmed
their chances of acquiring the capability to support their argument
by working critically with the assigned readings – a crucial
step towards their initiation into the academic community.
My third assignment posed a similar problem to the second, probably
to a more serious extent. The assignment asked students to consider
how we would need to revise the dominant notion of knowledge in our
society as presented in Drucker’s essay if we are to incorporate
the shaman’s “intimate knowledge of the wider natural community”
into Western culture. Considering that Drucker’s was a new essay
in this assignment, the problem is that a serious engagement with
Drucker’s essay was not imperative to answer this question. In
other words, students could respond to the assignment without paying
a substantial amount of attention to Drucker’s essay. Furthermore,
the narrowly directed question made it very hard for beginning writers
to bring their own interactions with the essay into their papers without
failing to address the question. While majority of the class docilely
attempted to shape their answer to fit the “expectations”
of the assignment, quite a few students responded to such partiality
on my part by demonstrating a sort of “resistance” in their
papers. Hence, for instance, James could not help venting his impatience
with the assignment.
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Since Drucker’s society is heavily dependent
on industry and technology . . . reverting to Abram’s society
would render those people useless, as there would be no more operation
rooms to take care of, no businesses to run and no more technology
to be improved. Rather, these workers would have to fall back in class
hierarchy and become sorcerers, village people, shamans and servants.
A more serious, though probably unintended, “resistance”
to the assignment was voiced in Edward’s paper. Criticizing Drucker,
he argued:
The question we have to ask ourselves is this for the benefit of
the developing nations or not. The world increasing with more knowledge
led societies, incredibly with the innovative uses of technology,
the developing nations lack and could not afford institutions and
materials that are needed to have knowledge workers. Becoming a knowledge
workers is definitely much harder in developing nations than that
of the developed nations.
In spite of his failure to construct effective paragraphs, Edward’s
paper demonstrated his thoughtful consideration of the issues that
Drucker raises: as quoted above, he correctly points out the unequal
distribution of the educational opportunities between the developed
and the developing countries, which Drucker indeed fails to address.
As I had to note in my end-comment to it, however, his paper is completely
off the point in light of the assignment question. I decided that
this “failure” should not be attributed just to his inability
to address the given assignment. Such a failure partly resulted from
my third assignment’s shortcomings: its narrow question did not
allow enough room for students’ active participation in the learning
process and deprived them of the opportunity to bring their own life-experience
into a critical conversation with the essays. In brief, my first sequence
was not safely distanced from the educational practice that Paulo
Friere criticizes: the practice where “students are to be ‘filled’
with words the teachers have chosen” and where knowledge “must
be ‘deposited, not born of the creative effort of learners.”
[8]
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| My second sequence: making space for
the students to do their own work |
I do not think my second sequence solved all the problems
that my experience with the assignments in the first half of the semester
had posed to me. Certainly, however, when writing the second sequence
I seriously factored in the impact that an assignment could make on
students’ writing. Particularly, I took pains to minimize a potential
imposition of my political leanings on students. One way to address
such concern, as I was advised in the graduate seminar on teaching
writing, is to set up a sequence in such a way that it continues to
“deconstruct” its own intention: this would thwart students’
tendency to assert their “opinion” based on the authority
of one essay that they believe the instructor upholds.
I introduced Lila Abu Lughod’s “Honor and Shame” for
the fourth assignment and asked students to consider how Abu-Lughod’s
essay complicates Abram’s representation of traditional communities.
My intention was to encourage students to distance themselves from
their “champion” of the first half of the semester and to
read the essay critically. The fifth assignment was also constructed
in such a way as to undermine the position that students were expected
to take in the fourth paper. Introducing Eric Schlosser’s “Global
Realization,” I asked students to discuss the place of tribal
communities like the Bedouins in the “McWorld.” [9]
Since most students would probably sympathize with Kamla’s aspiration
to get away from her small world and fail to factor in Abu-Lughod’s
qualifying voice, in the fifth assignment I wanted to introduce yet
another layer of complexity and make students consider the quality
of life in the outside world or the “McWorld” in which Kamla
desires to belong.
Indeed many students, especially female members of the class, the
majority of whom are from East Asian or South Asian immigrant families,
expressed their ardent support of Kamla’s struggle and harshly
criticized the oppressive male seniors of tribal community in their
fourth papers. For instance, Ann’s paper reads,
No one should be able to tell [Kamla] what kind of person she will
become and force her to live a way in which she does not agree with.
Just because many before her knelt to the oppression of the overbearing
traditional families, does not mean Kamla must follow in their footsteps.
Kamla’s struggle against the “oppression” of the tribal
community must have strongly appealed to students’ unchallenged
faith in the ideal of individual freedom, a faith which Bartholomae
might call another “commonplace.” Here again, a familiar
pattern seems to emerge: a “holy war” between the “champion”
of individual freedom and the “evil” of the pre-modern restraints.
This time, however, many students moved a step further towards a more
balanced handling of their new “opponent”--Abram. Kelly,
for example, shared Ann’s sympathy with Kamla, but demonstrated
a better-grounded critique of Abram. Though not a little amused by
her sudden metamorphosis from a supporter of Abram to his critic,
I was also pleased to witness her newly-acquired ability to read the
text critically in Kelly’s paper. Referring to Abram’s description
of the balian’s wife’s daily serving of rice to ants, she
argues,
Although he mentions the hostess many times while he is describing
that the ants are actually the household spirits, he never mentions
the balian’s wife’s name…. He does not understand their
culture from the natives’ actual point of view and therefore
concludes that the traditional way of life is the way to live based
on what he has seen.
Here Kelly successfully locates from the text a crucial moment to
support her point. Taking a step away from the “champion/villain”
logic, she demonstrates her ability to critically analyze the text,
even though her paper as a whole does not go much beyond the black-and-white
perspective in which “insiders always see things better than
outsiders.”
Though without providing specific textual evidence to support his
claim, James also makes a similar point to Kelly’s in his fourth
paper, and his fifth managed to make yet another significant step:
an introduction of complexity to his argument. Arguing that even to
meet the challenges of globalization the Bedouins would need the knowledge
of the outside world, he observes:
So, is it education that causes a loss of values and traditions,
or is it the lack thereof? Thus, education acts as a two-way gateway,
communicating directly between the McWorld and the Bedouin culture,
tunneling information about McDonalds, which could save the Bedouin
society, and, at the same time, risking cultural contamination.
Considering James' earlier one-sided arguments, this does look like
a breakthrough. Even compared to his fourth paper, where he does not
doubt the positive impacts of education on Kamla’s life, his
analysis of the function of education here evidences an incipient
critical ability to examine the issue on multiple levels. |
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| The end of the road: letting
students determine the topic |
As a culmination of my effort to open-up
the assignment questions, I carried out my most daring experiment
in the sixth assignment. Inspired partly by class discussion in the
graduate seminar on the Teaching of Writing, and partly by Friere’s
utopian pedagogy, I decided to ask students to design their own topic.
The only condition that I intended to impose was that their paper
should further the discussion of any of the topics that the class
had explored over the course of the semester. I believed that such
an opening-up would encourage each student to become, as Freire puts
it, the “Subject of his learning.” [10]
With such a goal in mind, I looked for an essay that could relate
to as many topics that we had touched on as possible. Alexander Stille’s
essay on Mishra’s dual functioning as priest and scientist in
the midst of the challenges that India faces seemed perfect for the
purpose, because it would provide students maximal interpretive freedom
with its potential to relate to almost all the issues covered in the
semester. Students were asked to formulate their own topic using Stille
and any other two essays.
Certainly, this was not an easy task for students. [11]
To perform successfully, not only would students have to generate
a relevant topic, but to make connections among the essays that they
chose on their own. In other words, to “invent” their own
topic, students should be able to "improvise," “imitate”
and, even “parody” all the tasks that the instructor performs
when making assignments. This also means that the students’ performance
in the sixth paper would be a good way to measure whether they had
successfully acquired the conventions of academic language –
probably not a bad way to wrap up the semester!
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| "To assign a
question with such a degree of openness would not have been desirable
nor practicable earlier in the semester--students simply did not have
the resources, or “a special vocabulary, a special system of
presentation, and an interpretive scheme (or a set of commonplaces)”
of the academic discourse,[12] to tackle such
a task." |
As expected, the sixth assignment resulted in a much more colorful
array of papers with variety of essay combinations. In spite of
the challenging tasks, most students performed on the same level
as or even better than in their fourth or fifth papers, and demonstrated
their ability to handle the issue subtly. It did not bring, however,
such a happy ending to their semester-long struggle to all the members
of the class. David produced a two-page sixth paper, citing his
inability to create a topic as the reason for his failure. His case
proves that only when students have approximated this new language
of academic discourse to a certain extent can they produce an acceptable
paper in response to an open assignment question like my sixth.
To assign a question with such a degree of openness would not have
been desirable nor practicable earlier in the semester--students
simply did not have the resources, or “a special vocabulary,
a special system of presentation, and an interpretive scheme (or
a set of commonplaces)” of the academic discourse,[12]
to tackle such a task.
Therefore, to construct all the assignment topics in collaboration
with the students, as Freire’s utopian pedagogy seems to suggest
for our case, would not have solved the problems that I experienced
with my first sequence. It would deprive students of crucial opportunities
to be exposed to the examples of academically acceptable ways of
questioning and formulating topics. I also do not mean to suggest
that we should write assignments that are politically neutral. At
the same time, however, as my experience with the first sequence
of assignments demonstrates, a narrow assignment with a clear-cut
political agenda will not do.
Some might argue that it is the instructor’s responsibility
to provide students an opportunity to consider a perspective alternative
to the one dominant among the general public. Some might also contend
that it is a good way to inculcate critical thinking. I believe
that the problem with such a position, thought, is that it does
not factor in the instructor’s power over students as an authority
who assigns the grades – an incontestable reality that makes
the instructor’s position a “correct” answer not
to be questioned. Therefore, in spite of good intentions, such a
practice can easily end up producing results widely different from
what was intended: rather than inculcating students’ with the
ability to think critically and to recognize the complexity of the
issues, this practice rules out the possibility of the students’
own intellectual adventure to explore the complexity of the issue
“as a participant in an ongoing conversation,” and, even
worse, contributes to the reinforcement of the students’ tendency
to persist in the simplistic binary way of thinking based on their
prejudice and commonplaces.
Then, what would constitute a successful sequence?
- I believe that an assignment sequence, especially the combination
of the essays and the order in which they introduced, should reflect
the various facets of the given issue and recognize the multiple
perspectives around it. After all, we know that we (and, for that
matter, even the renowned social critics included in The New
Humanities Reader, do not have solutions in hand to the issues
that we bring to the classroom. Thus, I believe that we need to
make a conscious effort to construct our assignments in a way
to reflect this reality. It is most effective to sequence the
essays that oppose each other and/or provide different aspects
of the issue.
- The same principle applies for each assignment question. A successful
assignment question would try to introduce diverse voices on the
given issue rather than uniformly presenting the instructor’s
position. I would first attempt to make the question broad enough
to tolerate a wide range of responses. This will enable students
to bring in their own interactions with the essays and their own
life-experiences without the danger of deviating from the question.
In fact, I would make a special effort to emphasize that there
is no single “correct” answer to the question, especially
if I am teaching science majors who are educated to think in such
terms.
- When making the question very broad, I would complement it by
providing a few sub questions for thoughts (which students are
not required to address) so that students will not feel lost.
These sub-questions can be used to present various perspectives
and aspects of the given issue as well as to exemplify academic
ways to raise questions.
- Finally, towards the end of the semester, I would open-up the
questions further and allow more interpretive freedom to students
to finalize their initiation to the academic community.
Making a conscious effort to foster students’ active participation
in the learning process, while not ignoring our responsibility to
initiate students to the academic discourse--this might be the way
to implement the best of Freire’s utopian pedagogy in our classroom.
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[1]James C. Scott, “Behind the Official
Story,” The New Humanities Reader, eds. Richard E. Miller and
Kurt Spellmeyer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001) 501-13.
[2] I got these terms in a personal conversation
with Vera Eliasova of the English program at Rutgers.
[3] Philip Angell, “Monsanto Responds to
Michael Pollan’s Essay ‘Playing God in the Garden,’”
New York Times Magazine, Oct. 25, 1998.
[4] It is interesting that students could catch
this even though I tried to sound as neutral as possible in classroom
discussions. I believe this supports my earlier point that assignments
make a disproportionately strong impact on students’ writings.
[5] To my consolation, this was not always the
case. Judy, for instance, maintained her critical distance from
Pollan, and made an interesting case that Abram would support biotechnology
since it fits into Abram’s definition of magic.
[6] For a discussion of beginning writers’
dependence on the commonplace, or accepted value and common wisdom,
see David Bartholomae, “Inventing the University,” Literacy:
A Critical Sourcebook, eds. Ellen Cushman and et al. (Boston:
Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2001) 518 19.
[7] For a discussion of basic writer’s easy
slippage into “the more immediately available and realizable
voice of authority,” see Bartholomae 513.
[8] Paulo Freire, “The Adult Literacy Process
as Cultural Action for Freedom” and “Education and Conscientizaçao,”
Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook, 617-18.
[9] “The Values, tastes, and industrial practices
of the American fast food industry are being exported to every corner
of the globe, helping to create a homogenized international culture
that sociologist Benjamin R. Barber has labeled ‘McWorld.’”
Eric Schlosser, “Global Realization,” The New Humanities
Reader, Custom Ed., 481.
[10] Freire 623.
[11] Aware of the challenges that this new task
would pose to students, I offered an optional twenty-minute individual
conference. The high level of anxiety in the face of this new task
was evidenced by all the students’ participation and their
eager compliance with my request to bring their tentative topic
with the selection of the essays.
[12] Bartholomae 513.
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Appendix: Assignments for Expository Writing 101, Fall 2001
1. Pollan and Monsanto
While we recognize no one possesses the Holy Grail in agriculture,
what is troubling is that, in spite of being an organic gardener yourself,
you failed to present the views of the many independent plant scientists
and agriculture experts who tell a story about biotechnology and sustainability
very different from your personal view…. To ignore well-known and
responsible supporters of biotechnology, and rely on radical polemicists
is to mislead readers as to the true nature of the issues and the debate.
Angell, Philip. “Monsanto Responds To Michael Pollan’s Essay
‘Playing God in the Garden’”
Philip Angell argues that Pollan failed to present various aspects of
the issue of genetically engineered food and that, as a result, misled
“readers as to the true nature of the issues and the debate.”
In this paper I would like you to discuss what you think of Angell’s
critique of Pollan. Do you agree with Angell that Pollan’s discussion
of the genetically engineered food is biased?
In answering this question, you may like to think about the following
(but do not try to answer all of them directly): How would Pollan defend
himself in response to such a critique? Does Pollan discuss both the benefits
and the risks of the genetically engineered food? If so, where and in
what ways? What are the main sources of information that he depends on
in appraising the challenges posed by the genetically engineered food?
Whether you agree with Angell or not, you need to support your claim
with textual evidence and demonstrate your thorough understanding of Pollan’s
essay. Please make sure to refer to (or cite directly) at least three
passages from Pollan.
2. Abram and Pollan
It is this, we might say, that defines a shaman: the ability to readily
slip out of the perceptual boundaries that demarcate his or her particular
culture –boundaries reinforced by social customs, taboos, and most
importantly, the common speech or language – in order to make contact
with, and learn from, the other powers in the land. His magic is precisely
this heightened receptivity to the meaningful solicitations – songs,
cries, gestures – of the larger, more-than-human field. Abram,
David. “The Ecology of Magic” (6)
In “The Ecology of Magic,” Abram explores a balanced and reciprocal
relationship between humans and the natural world found outside the Western
civilization. Based on Abram’s thesis in “The Ecology of Magic,”
do you think Abram would approve the genetically engineered food like
Monsanto’s potatoes? In this essay I would like you to discuss in
what ways Abram would criticize or approve Monsanto’s “playing
God in the garden.” What would be his main point when criticizing
or approving Monsanto? How is that related to his celebration of Indonesian
shaman’s ability to make contact with the “larger, more-than-human
field”? Please discuss also whether reading Abram altered your understanding
of Pollan’s arguments, and, if so, in what ways.
Make sure to support your argument with textual evidence, and demonstrate
your thorough understanding of the essays with direct citations from both
of them.
3. Drucker, Pollan and Abram
Knowledge has become the key source, for a nation’s military
strength as well as for its economic strength. And this knowledge can
be acquired only through schooling. It is not tied to any country. It
is portable. It can be created everywhere, fast and cheaply. Finally,
it is by definition changing. Knowledge as the key resource is fundamentally
different from the traditional key resources of the economist – land,
labor, and even capital. Drucker, Peter F. “The Age of Social
Transformation” (266)
One way to look at biotechnology is that it allows a larger portion
of human intelligence to be incorporated into the plant itself. In this
sense, my New Leafs are just plain smarter than the rest of my potatoes.
The others will depend on my knowledge and experience when the Colorado
potato beetles strike; the New leafs, knowing what I know about bugs and
Bt, will take care of themselves. Pollan, Michael. “Playing God
in the Garden” (462)
Criticizing Western culture’s dominant view of human being’s
relationship to the natural world, Abram seems to encourage us to incorporate
shaman’s “intimate knowledge of the wider natural community”(15)
in our culture. If we follow his advice, in what ways would it require
a revision of the dominant notion of knowledge in our society, that is,
in the “knowledge society” to use Drucker’s term? More
specifically, in what ways should we revise Drucker’s notion of education?
Is Drucker’s notion of knowledge and education compatible with Abram’s
call for a better understanding of the natural community? If so, how?
If not, what would we need to revise?
In thinking about this question, also consider the following questions:
How would you define the knowledge that makes Monsanto’s genetically
engineered potatoes “smarter”? In what ways is it different
from or the same as shaman’s knowledge or Drucker’s notion of
knowledge?
You don’t need to pay the same amount of attention to all the three
essays, but you should use and refer to all of them (at least once each)
in your paper.
4. Abu-Lughod and Abram: Traditional Communities and Individual Rights
In “The Ecology of Magic,” David Abram records his experience
of visiting traditional communities in third world countries and celebrates
their ways of life and cultures embedded in the natural world. Lila Abu-Lughod’s
“Honor and Shame” introduces a different perspective on tribal
communities, an insider’s take on the cultures of traditional communities.
In this essay, I would like you to discuss how looking at the life in
tribal communities from Kamla’s and Abu-Lughod’s perspectives
complicates Abram’s representation.
In answering this question, you may like to consider the following (but
do NOT try to answer all of them directly): How does her formal education
change Kamla’s relationship to her community? What is she likely
to gain or lose by her move to the city away from her tribal community?
Why do people in the community oppose the education of girls? What is
at stake in such an opposition? What are the benefits and limitations
of a communal life to its members?
5. Schlosser and Abu-Lughod: Traditional Communities in the Age of
Globalization
The values, tastes, and industrial practices of the American fast
food industry are being exported to every corner of the globe, helping
to create a homogenized international culture that sociologist Benjamin
R. Barber has labeled “McWorld.” Schlosser, Eric. “Global
Realization” (481)
Write an essay where you discuss the place of tribal communities like
the Bedouins in the “McWorld.”
In answering this question, consider the following questions (but do
NOT try to answer all of them directly):
1. Why does McDonald’s “global realization” matter? What
does McDonald’s represent? Why have McDonald’s restaurants become
the targets of demonstrations overseas? Why would people like Morris and
Steel want to fight with McDonald’s?
2. According to Schlosser, what is the socio-economic impact of McDonald’s
project of globalization? For instance, how has the introduction of “the
values, tastes, and industrial practices of the American fast food industry”
following the breakdown of East Germany transformed people’s life
in Plauen?
3. What are the challenges and/or opportunities that a global economy
poses to Bedouin people? Are they too far away from the centers of the
Western civilization to get affected? Or are they already affected by
it? What will they gain and/or lose when they join the “McWorld”?
4. How does formal education function in tribal people’s relation
to the outside world, or the “McWorld”?
6. Alexander Stille’s “The Ganges’ Next Life”
and Two Other Essays.
This semester we have tried to discuss some of the issues that challenge
us in our times: What is knowledge and why does it matter in our society?
What is the socioeconomic impact of new technologies like bioengineering?
What are the challenges that globalization poses to traditional communities?
Do religion and tradition have places in the knowledge society? How should
we define our relationship with the natural world in the 21st century?
In this final essay for the semester, I want you to formulate your own
topic in such a way as to further our discussion and write a paper engaging
with Stille and any other two essays that we’ve read together.
Please note: Make sure to quote at least one passage each from the three
essays.
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