After you choose one of the essay topics you are to form a thesis and develop a
After you choose one of the essay topics you are to form a thesis and develop a full essay and argument that expresses your understanding of the quote below and your understanding of the writer’s intention. You are to only refer to the text that the topic is from. You essay should show evidence of a fully developed thesis and clearly written essay with supporting details. Remember to only make references to the primary texts that we have read thus far. The essay should be 1200-1600 words in length, typed-double space, and in TIMES NEW ROMAN FONT. with proper Chicago Manual of Style citation, quotations are no longer than 5-7 words in length. Your grade will be determined by originality of thought. P… If you don’t follow these guidelines it will have an impact on your grade. Please note: any signs of plagiarism will not be tolerated and result in an automatic F.
Hint: The quotes below are not from texts that we have read. However, they do connect to the texts that we have read.
Topic 1: “The treatment of heroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks)-the quiet
acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress-is only one aspect of a
certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of
governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders.”
Topic 2: “Their helplessness made enslavement easier. The Indians were on their own land. The whites were in their own European culture. The Blacks had been torn from their land and culture, forced into a situation where the heritage of language, dress, custom, family relations, was bit by bit obliterated except for remnants that blacks could hold on to by sheer, extraordinary
persistence. Was their culture inferior—and so subject to easy destruction?”
Topic 3: “It cannot but be very discouraging to a man of my complexion in such an attempt as this, to meet with the evil asperations of some men, who say, “That an African is not entitled to any competent degree of knowledge, or capable of imbibing any sentiments of probity; and that nature designed him for some inferior link in the chain, fitted to be a slave.”
Topic 4: “categories of good and evil are defined in terms of what is consonant or not consonant with the creative order of this hierarchy of vital forces. It is from the sacred aspects of this spiritual order that these ethical categories derive their authority. Human actions that challenge this order are bad, while those that affirm it are good.”
Formal Essays are writings with a guided prompt that showcase your ability as a writer and critical thinker. These assignments are 1200-1600 words in length, with proper Chicago Manual of Style citation, quotations are no longer than 5-7 words in length. Your grade will be determined by originality of thought. Please note: any signs of plagiarism will not be tolerated and result in an automatic F.
Topic 5: In her book, Creolizing the Nation, Kris Sealey states, “And here is where, to my mind, things became weirdly aporetic, in a way that such postcolonial situations— like Isaiah’s birth out of an immigrant mother and into the racialized metrics of US citizenship— always are. The C- opening that was performed on my body would not (could not) be covered by Medicaid. The room that I healed in for three days, as I established breastfeeding amid Isaiah’s phototherapy treatment, would not (could not) be covered by Medicaid. The rounds of morphine dripping into my body, to dull the pain of the incision through which my little U.S. citizen entered the world, would not (could not) be covered by Medicaid. So in sum, my health and well- being, unavoidably necessary for the health and well- being of the baby citizen, was an obligation outside the boundaries of the community of which that baby citizen was now a part.”
Topic 6 : In her book A Small Place Jamaica Kincaid states, “There are no American cars in Antigua—no new ones, at any rate; none that were manufactured in the last ten years. You continue to look at the cars and you say to yourself, why, they look brand-new, but they have an awful sound, like an old car—a very old, dilapidated car. How to account for that? Well, possibly it’s because they use leaded gasoline in these brand-new cars whose engines were built to use non-leaded gasoline, but you musn’t ask the person driving the car if this is so, because he or she has never heard of unleaded gasoline.”