Unit #2: Discourse Community and Standard American English Synthesis Essay Assignment
For this assignment, you will write a 750 to 1500-word essay in which you will select two of the academic articles available in the Synthesis Archive in your Blackboard course and synthesize ideas and data to inform the audience about these issues.Purpose:The purpose of this assignment is to demonstrate that you can critically read information from two different sources and develop your own opinion on the topic and then articulate that opinion in a well-supported essay.
Tasks:
✓Select two articles that interest you in the synthesis archive✓Print and read each article(or read and annotate digital article)
✓Annotate each article by highlighting, underlining, and adding marginal notes as you interact with the text (What do you find interesting? What questions do you have?)
✓Consider the following rhetorical questions for each article and write down your responses. This information will be helpful when comparing the articles:
When was the article written?
Who is the intended audience?
What was the writer’s purpose?
Do you think the author was successful in achieving that purpose?
✓Complete writing workshop#6:Summary of first article(Remember the summary rules)
✓Complete writing workshop#7:Summary of second article
✓Use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the main ideas in each article(Where are they similar? Where are they different?)
✓Submit an image of the Venn Diagram work sheet in the Pre-writing assignment #2✓Use your notes and venn diagram to complete the Compare and Contrast paragraphs
✓Consider what you think about topic. Where do agree and disagree with the authors of both articles? Write down your responses in 1-2 paragraphs
✓Now create a comparison and contrast thesis statement with main points that support your opinion on the topic.[See models in week 12 and sample essay]
✓Organize your notes into an outline that follows the synthesis format below(note you have not written the conclusion, yet):
✓a. The introduction: •Contains a one-sentence statement that sums up the focus of your synthesis. •Also introduces the texts to be synthesized: oGives the title of each source (following the citation guidelines of whatever style sheet you are using); oProvides the name of each author;