Explanation of Second Paper: Pop Culture
Background information: The topic for the second paper of the semester is popular culture: movies, television, music, books, art, sports, fashion, social media, gaming, and more. This paper is analytic and argumentative; it is a paper that tries to explain an idea about popular culture by analyzing its parts, and ultimately expresses an opinion or observation about that topic.
Like all the papers in the course, this essay is a synthesis of your own observations and opinions, and the ideas and information from the readings in our textbook, from the assigned videos, and from your own research. Like all good writing, it has a point to make and makes it with careful thinking, focused paragraphs, and lots of concrete detail.
Popular Culture: This assignment asks you to analyze some specific aspect of popular culture. You could choose a specific movie, or a specific musician, or a specific television show, and make some comment about it--even something as simple as explaining why you like or dislike something.
(Notice that one of the readings in our textbook is about The Simpsons.) Or you could discuss a type of movie (romance? comic book super heros?), or a type of music (rap? folk?).
Or you could write about a more general, related topic, like the "free" downloading of music or videos, or the lack of Asian American entertainment stars (starting to shift). Remember also that you can talk about popular culture in terms of any country that you are familiar with, such as the movie industry in India, or Haitian music, or the Internet in China, or soccer everywhere.
The first essays in our textbook analyze comedy, critique ads aimed at Latinas, defend The Simpsons, criticize a type of Facebook user, and reflect on the meaning of dolls. The videos claim that online gaming can save the world, that the military and live theater are natural companions, that crowd improvisation can make us happier, and that boring television can be exceptionally engaging.
All of these essays and videos show you different ways that that you can shape a topic for yourself. So these essays and talks are models for you.
But they are also sources for your paper. Even if your topic is not specifically covered in the assigned reading/viewing, there are general ideas in all of them that apply across a wide range of topics. In addition, you may need to do your own research to find additional articles on your topic.
The actual assignment: Argue for an opinion or observation that you have about a specific topic within popular culture.
Length: 4 or more double spaced typed pages.
Readings: Strong reference to at least 3 different readings, at least one of them from our assigned articles/videos..
Format: Titled. Name, EN101 sec. 022, date in upper left corner.
Sent as a Word attachment through Blackboard Messages.