Thursday evening, July 25th--9 pm

Greetings,

1.  Attention: a minor error on the syllabus. I inadvertently listed Group Exercise 2 TWICE. Please cross it out where I have it listed for Tuesday, July 30th.

2.  Packet 4 Assignment:
"Lauren Zalaznick: The Conscience of Television"
http://www.ted.com/talks/lauren_zalaznick.html


3. I have only completed reading and scoring six of the sixty out of class essay #1's that were submitted today. Sadly, two out of those six have sections that are plagiarized word for word. If you are someone who did end up plagiarizing parts of your essay, this is a fairly serious act. Hopefully, the two I have encountered are the only ones. Sigh.

3. Also, please find below the assignment of out of class essay #2 which was distributed and discussed in class today. 

English 20, Summer 2013---C. Fraga

·       Date assigned: Thursday, July 25

·       Rough draft (optional): due no later than Tuesday, July 30

·       Final draft due: Thursday, August 1

Details:

1. MLA format OR APA format

2. At least 4 outside sources on your Works Cited page

3. Please, no Wikipedia

4. No formulaic, 5 paragraph essay

OUT OF CLASS ESSAY ASSIGNMENT #2

Among many things, the series Breaking Bad focuses on the family entity and what happens when something quite extraordinary occurs—how do members of the family cope, adjust, and/or “deal” with the event/situation? (In the case of this series, obviously it is Walter’s cancer that is the ‘event’).

I am not referring to the everyday “bumps in the road” that occur for all families. Instead, I am asking you to consider the family unit when faced with an especially challenging situation. These situations could include but are not limited to:

• death

• birth

• infidelity

• serious injury

• dementia

• serious illness

• divorce

• unemployment

• new employment

• moving to a new home/state/area/country

• the return of a war veteran

• moving BACK home after initially moving OUT

• alcoholism

• drug abuse

Select ONE situation that you are most interested in exploring. You may NOT focus on a topic/situation that you have actually experienced. (I will explain in class why)

You will conduct research (and possibly personal interviews, if possible) in order to write an essay that offers the reader background on the topic and makes an assertion about what elements impact a family in the most challenging of ways and supports it logically and interestingly.

Your thesis might read something like this:

When a family member develops dementia, the challenges are often devastating, yet the disease definitely impacts family members more than the dementia patient.

Or…

When a couple divorces, it most certainly impacts the children still living at home; however, it is the older children who have already moved away that are most affected by the split.