PART ONE
“Like Things.” Choose one of the “analogous” examples you found – or a new one you have found – and tell us about it in writing. Use your sources to explain the issue (be careful to cite those sources properly, to quote if necessary, but also to use your own words to explain the issue, summarizing it from your sources. (One good strategy: put the sources down and away, so you are not relying too much on their wording.)
You are looking for an analogous example that complicates your thinking about your issue. If I am pro-union, for instance, it might be obvious to me that McDonald’s workers should be allowed to form a union and bargain for better pay and working conditions. But while I might still be inclined to support a union for NYU graduate students who are teaching assistants, I might have more questions about that: are teaching assistants “employees”? Is a research assistant an “employee”? Is there a difference between work you do as a graduate student versus work you do independent of that status?
So tell us, then, how the analogous example you found relates to your issue, and what complications it poses for you, as you think more about that issue.
PART TWO:
“Theory Texts.” In “Memo to Nike CEO Phil Knight,” Kseniya Ivnitskaya uses several texts that are not obviously and directly discussing Nike or the concerns Ivnitskaya has about the company’s practices. Some of these texts are business-minded (the Stephen Carter text, for instance, and the one from Margaret Wheatley); others (like Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”) are less directly connected.
But all these “theory” texts are in service of thinking about the specific issues Ivnitskaya is concerned about.
Find at least one “theory text” that can help you think more about your issue. As you search, consider the relationship between the “theory text” and the issue itself: does it seem reasonable to put this “theory” text in the same conversation? How might a reader respond to the inclusion of this text? What might you need to do to make the text seem relevant and appropriate and a necessary part of your letter?
Tell us in writing about the “theory text” you have chosen, and what it might help you do in your letter.