Proposals |
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By the end of this lesson, you should be able to do each of the following without consulting notes or other resources:
Please complete the following assignments before coming to class on Tuesday: Read Chapter 12 of Everything’s an Argument
and excerpts from John Winthrop’s A Modell of Christian Charity
(108-112) and Roger Williams’s The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (194-195). Prewrite some material for your proposal. Focus on exploring problems, obstacles, and solutions related to the subject you are exploring. Our class activities this week include the following: Think Fast: React to John Winthop’s and Roger
Williams’s proposals. What problems
or obstacles are they addressing?
Evaluate their solutions.
Presentation: Proposals (Professor Canada) Cooperative Learning: Discuss the arguments
with your classmates. Discussion: During this time, we will
discuss the insights and questions that have emerged during our reading,
“Think Fast” exercise, presentations, and cooperative learning. I also will show you how to post your
first essay on the World Wide Web.
Workshop: Use various prewriting strategies
to explore a subject in the exploration and colonization of America. Discuss your ideas with other members
of your group. Think Again: Using what you have learned or
reviewed in this lesson, revise your evaluation. Make sure that this essay has a claim, evidence, effective
topic sentences, well-organized paragraphs, ample support, and an engaging
style. Conferences: While the rest of you are
working on the “Think Again” exercise, I will meet with two of you in
one-on-one conferences. During
this time, I will review some of your writing, orally quiz you on lesson
objectives, and field your questions. Announcements: We will wrap up this lesson
with announcements regarding upcoming lessons, as well as other relevant
subjects. Names and Terms
Make sure you know the meaning and significance of each of the following names and terms:
Resources
You can find more information about the subject covered in this lesson by consulting the resource listed below: Everything’s
an Argument contains extensive discussion of proposals. Updated September 5, 2002
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IntroductionCongratulations! You have completed your first argument in this course. You will continue to use much of what you learned in our first few lessons as you study and write other kinds of argument. In this lesson, we look a second kind of argument called a proposal. DiscussionThe Purpose and Structure of ProposalsOne of the most common kinds of argument, especially in the fields of politics and business, is the proposal. The author of a proposal argues that a person or a group should or should not take a particular action. A member of the United States House of Representatives, for example, might propose a law to control the sale of handguns, or an advertising firm might propose a new plan for promoting a company’s products. Even a couple of friends who advise you to live on campus are making a proposal argument. The word “should” is often a clue that the argument you are reading or hearing is a proposal: “The United States should take military action against Iraq.” “Our corporation should move its headquarters to Raleigh.” “College students should not work more than 20 hours per week.” In making proposal arguments, authors often draw on other kinds of argument. Take the example of some friends’ proposal that you live on campus. These friends may begin by arguing that residence halls are less expensive and more convenient than off-campus apartments; in doing so, they are making an evaluation argument. They then may go on to argue that being close to the library and having quiet hours will cause you to get better grades, thus making a causal argument. They might even make an argument of definition by claiming that living in a residence hall is an academic experience, a king of college course in itself. Thus, to support the proposal claim that you should live on campus, your friends have actually used three other kinds of argument. Creating a ProposalWhen planning a proposal, you should begin by looking carefully at the evidence surrounding an issue. Often this issue will involve some kind of problem: handgun violence, for example, or declining profits. In other cases, there may be no obvious problem that needs immediate action, but rather the usual sorts of obstacles that nations, organizations, and individuals encounter on their way to their goals. When you enrolled in college, for instance, you probably did not already have a problem regarding your place of residence. Still, you had to decide what action to take: to live on campus, to rent an off-campus apartment, or to commute from home. A proposal that you live on campus would take into account your goals and the obstacles that you will face, and it would spell out the reasons why living on campus would help you to overcome those obstacles and achieve your goals. Thus, the prewriting you do for your proposal might include listing problems, doing a clustering diagram of obstacles, and freewriting solutions. Once you have explored the topic through prewriting, you are ready to begin writing your proposal. Begin with a claim that proposes some action or the avoidance of some action. Outline a discussion of the relevant problems, obstacles, and solutions you explored in your prewriting. Finally, convert the points in this outline into a draft in paragraph form. As always, you will want to spend a lot of time revising your argument. In particular, make sure that you have clearly stated a claim that proposes a course of action, accurately described relevant problems or solutions, and thoroughly discussed a realistic, feasible solution. ConclusionOver the next couple of lessons, you will continue to work on your proposals while we discuss some strategies for interpreting and using sources. |