Outline assignment 

In this assignment, you will craft an outline for an essay that compares the relative merits of two lenses  for understanding the origin and nature of mass incarceration: the race/drug lens and the class lens. By “lense” I mean “explanation” or “theory”

So, again, you are NOT writing the essay here.  You are writing the OUTLINE for that essay.

Here is the essay question:

Which of the two lenses provides a more accurate understanding of the nature and causes of mass incarceration and (far more importantly) how and why?

The essay question does require understanding the readings, so be sure to ask me questions if any portion of the readings confuse you.

Likewise, be careful to distinguish between when the author is making their own argument and when they are summarizing the arguments others in order to criticize them (something we discussed a lot on the Perrussal questions).

So, for example, in the last three paragraphs of p. 47 in Locked In, Pfaff summarizes three reasons OTHERS have presented for disparities in drug sentencing.  He’s not arguing on that page that any of those are accurate.  So, quoting a portion of that paragraph as something Pfaff has demonstrated (or even THINKS) as true would be inaccurate.

This outline (and, eventually, essay), must make use of direct quotations from the readings so far.

You must have in your outline:

A) at least three (3) relevant quotations from Race to Incarcerate on the origins of mass incarceration according to the race/drug lens.

B) at least  two (2) relevant quotations from Race to Incarcerate on the “punitive response”

C) At least three (3) relevant quotations from The Thirteenth on what drove mass incarceration after the 1960s

D) At least four (4) relevant quotations from Pfaff’s Locked In

E) At least three (3) relevant quotations from “Mass Incarceration: New Jim Crow, Class War, Or Both”

F) At least three (3) relevant quotations from The Economic Origins of Mass Incarceration reading.

(TOTAL OF 18 DIRECT QUOTATIONS)

(Of course, since this is an outline, you’ll be putting those quotations WITHIN an outline that specifies each claim; see example below.  DO NOT GIVE ME A LIST OF QUOTATIONS; instead, attach those pieces of evidence to each of your claims in your outline)

Some requirements for the STRUCTURE of this essay (and hence of the outline)

A) Do *NOT * organize your essay around the sources (that is, first discussing one source, then then next, and so on). INSTEAD, organize your essay around themes, such as “The Role of the War on Drugs in mass incarceration.” You will likely have five or six themes

B) You must have a two to three-sentence thesis that address the entirety of your essay and that provides a specific road map of the essay’s argument and where it will go.

Some requirements for the OUTLINE

This outline will differ from outlines you may have done in high school. Your outline should be a series of CLAIMS and EVIDENCE that takes the form of direct quotations.

So, here’s how a section from the middle of such an outline might look:

III. CLAIM: The economic lens better describes the origins of mass incarceration because it details the ways in which space aliens funded the construction of prisons; in contrast, the Race/Drug lens only addresses the role of racism in Mass Incarceration.

Evidence: Pfaff, p. 47 “87% of new prison bed construction after 1970 was funded by the Intergalactic Federation for Space Alien Supremacy.”

Evidence: Race to Incarcerate, p. 8 “Space aliens didn’t matter”

At this point, you do not need provide the warrant for your cl/ev/wa structures, just the cl and ev.

Your outline must give me the page number or, for The 13th, the timestamp for all of your pieces of evidence.

Your outline must meaningfully use of all the quotations specified above from each source.

So, here’s how your outline might look:

I. THESIS

II CL

EV: quotation

III CL

EV; quotation

And so on until you have mapped out your full essay (check to make sure you’ve met the quotation requirements specified above)

And also do the essay that would include claim evidence warrant