Blog Posts, Homework, and Reading Assignments

On your blogs, I would like you to work on narrowing down one of your broad topics into a tentative thesis statement. Based on the example I provided in class, I want you to ask several questions regarding your topic, posting the answers in a blog post. Some examples include:

• Who's involved with my topic?
• What's involved with my topic?
• What do I already know about my topic?
• What do I want to know about my topic? (may require exploratory research)
• Are there any other broad topics linked to mine?

Once you've narrowed your topic into a tentative thesis statement, email what you have come up with in preparation for our Thesis Statement Workshop next Thursday.  Remember to reference the Thesis Statement PowerPoint, posted  to D2L for guidelines.

In addition to emailing me your tentative thesis statement, you will need to read the essay, "Offensive Play," by Malcolm Gladwell (posted on D2L) and be prepared to discuss it in class next week.  I have also posted to D2L an essay titled, "Writing an Academic Argument."  Please read this piece as well.  If you have any questions about this essay and the assignment in general, feel free to ask them in class so that everyone can benefit from the answer.