Essay 2, Proposal Essay: 250 points

Your essay will be 1800-2000 words, and will use at least 5 sources (2 TED talks and 3 articles from major US newspapers). You may certainly have more than 5 sources; in fact, most students find they need 8-10 sources in order to discuss their subject in as much depth and detail as the assignment requires. You will need to include a works cited page in MLA format, and all in-text citations will also be in MLA style.

The goal of essay 2 is to make a proposal argument after thoughtful and careful consideration of the complexity of the issue at hand. You will choose a broad subject from the list of TED playlists. After you have watched 4 of the talks, you’ll begin to ask questions that will be directed toward your more specific topic. Your topic will be directly related to, and arise from, the information in the 4 TED talks. From there, you will gather other sources that speak more directly to your specific proposal. You are required to have at least 5 sources cited in your essay (2 TED talks and 3 newspaper articles). You may add additional sources after that if you feel they are necessary. Be careful to balance the use of your sources. Do no lean too heavily on any one source. Your in-text citations should be roughly equal between sources.

4 TED talks:

http://www.ted.com/playlists/75/what_s_wrong_with_what_we_eat

What’s Wrong With What We Eat:

Barton Seaver, “Sustainable Seafood?  Let’s Get Smart”

Louise Fresco, “We need to feed the whole world”

What’s Wrong With What We Eat–Jamie Oliver, “Teach Every Child About Food”

Mark Bittman, “What’s Wrong With What We Eat

Chapter 12 of your textbook discusses proposal essays in detail, and provides an excellent section (in yellow) at the end of the chapter that discusses the steps toward writing a proposal essay. We will discuss those pages during the relevant weeks of the course.

What’s Wrong With What We Eat:

Barton Seaver, “Sustainable Seafood?  Let’s Get Smart”

Louise Fresco, “We need to feed the whole world”

What’s Wrong With What We Eat–Jamie Oliver, “Teach Every Child About Food”

Mark Bittman, “What’s Wrong With What We Eat”