Directions:
1. Choose a culture or group of which you are a member.
2. Begin with self-reflection (what you already know through experience). Use your own experience to begin describing and analyzing your culture.
3. Conduct library research using online databases. Use three (3) secondary sources.
4. Conduct an interview (one primary source) to use in your essay.
5. Use your analysis and research to help identify and clarify misconceptions outsiders might have about your culture.
6. Use your analysis and research to help identify something about your culture that insiders and outsiders should know.
7. Explain why your analysis and research are important, revealing, or useful to our understanding of your culture. What difference do your ideas make?
8. Use MLA Style and incorporate research using quotes, paraphrases, and summaries.
9. Length: 3-4 pages + Works Cited page (so, 4-5 pages total).
10. Integrate four (4) total sources (3 secondary and 1 primary).
What are you doing?
Analyze and explain how one such cultural or group affiliation has affected your sense of who you are.
Remember: Consider your own experiences as the starting point for exploration, examination, and representation.
Things to consider and address as you write:
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Analyze and explain the extent to which your identification with a particular group has contributed to you being “othered.” By “othered,” I mean how you or your group has been excluded or separated or made to seem strange or at odds with other groups.
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What stereotypes exist about the group you identify with? Where do you find these stereotypes? TV? Textbooks? Websites? Be specific.
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Explain what it means to be part of this group. Address how belonging to this group has influenced how you view yourself, the way you view the world, the way you view other people not part of the group.
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Investigate the history of this group. How did it get started? What were its founding principles? Are those founding principles still endorsed and practiced by most followers? By you? Have the principles changed?
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If this is a group you chose (rather than chose you), how do your reasons for belonging to this group cohere with the major tenants of the group?
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Can anyone be a member of the group? Why or why not? To what extent did you choose to belong to this group and to what extent were you born into it?
Remember:
Your audience will most likely include those not identified with your group. Therefore, your voice and tone will need to take these members of your audience into consideration. As you write, stay aware of how your writing relates back to your thesis (main idea). Avoid stating too much background or history of your group without continuously relating it back to your own story, interpretation, and experiences. Intertwine your own story with the larger picture, don’t keep the two aspects of the paper separate.
Essay Requirements:
*Length: 3-4 pages (typed, double-spaced, MLA format) + a Works Cited page (so, 4-5 pages total)
*Include four (4) total sources (3 secondary and 1 primary).
*MLA essay format
*Participation in Peer Review
*Participate in in-class conferences
*Focus on the following elements:
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Engaging introduction
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Clear thesis statement
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Fully developed paragraphs
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Transitions between paragraphs and ideas
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Clear focus and organization
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Inclusion of specific examples, stories, and anecdotes
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Thoughtful analysis
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Correct integration of sources