Assignment:
Choose one (1) of the three (3) reading selections from the list of topic choices below. The focus is on brief but important primary source material written by important authors. In each case, the subject relates to the problems of certain people who are oppressed or impoverished. In each topic, a different genre or approach is adopted to help readers see and perhaps address the problem. Read the selections as identified with each topic below.
Write a 4 to 5 paragraph essay (350 words minimum) which analyzes the work following the list of four things "your paper should cover" given just after the topics.
Topic Choices
1.Reading selection of Swift's A Modest Proposal.
Review: A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick (1729) by Jonathan Swift
It is essential to recognize the genre of this work, which you should consult and cite. The context is the plight of the very poor in Ireland in the early 1700s.
2. Reading selection from Equiano's Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, written in 1789. The context is the process of enslavement and then passage across the Atlantic.
3. Reading selection of Olympe de Gouges' Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female citizen (written in 1791). You should also look at the revolutionary document of 1789 that she is "correcting", called Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Olympe de Gouge has the status of women as her main concern. The general context is the French Revolution and the attempts to redefine rights and status once one replaces monarchy.
For the reading selection and topic you choose, your paper should cover the following:
Briefly introduce the writer and the situation that this reading is about. Identify the genre or nature of the reading.
Using specific examples or lines within the reading, suggest the author's key views and key aims for the reading audience.
Evaluate the author's strategy and what you see as the work's likely effectiveness (or lack of effectiveness) for the target audience. If there is any known historical result, discuss that.
Evaluate how the reading impacted you. Identify any analogous situations today, and also key lessons you get from the reading that could be relevant to one's professional and personal life.
Your assignment must :
This course requires the use of Strayer Writing Standards WS). The format is different than others Strayer University courses. Please take a moment to review the SWS documentation for details.
You must the class text and also any source(s) identified (with links) above for the topic you choose, focusing on the main primary source of that author. If you use any additional source (optional), it must be from the university's online Library and of good academic quality for college work.