Essay

READING

Race, Class, and Gender in the United States, 9^th edition (2014), Paula S. Rothenberg

 

On line Readings to go along with the assignment

 

 

ESSAY

 

Prior to writing a response to this formal essay question, it is imperative that you take the time to read, in detail, the requirements for essay submissions, as clearly outlined in the syllabus. All essays must be based on course material and respond to the question prompt. Failure to follow directions will result in lost points and/or a "non-passing" grade.
Do not forget that the essay must be submitted to Smarthinking.com and then revised according to the tutor's feedback. When you submit your work to me, please make sure to include in ONE document (1) the first draft of your essay; (2) the Smarthinking.com feedback -- written comments from the tutor; and (3) the revised essay -- which must include the changes suggested by the Smarthinking.com tutor. All assignments must follow MLA formatting guidelines. Please review the syllabus for word count and the grading matrix.

Question Prompt: What laws and public policy initiatives have created and maintained a system of structural discrimination against members of the gay and lesbian community in the USA? In discussing structural discrimination against the GLBTQ community, please make sure to define the term and provide studies and research from course material to support your response to the question prompt. Remember, in terms of this assignment, public policy refers to government policies which perpetuate and maintain inequality. No late submissions will be accepted for the essay. Good luck writing and I look forward to reading your assignment!

 

I WILL NOT ACCEPT LATE SUBMISSIONS FOR THE ESSAY.

For this course you must write one formal essay. The essay you write must be based on course assigned material, no exceptions. The essay responses should include an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement and directional clause. In the thesis, you must respond to the question prompt. Remember, however, that approximately 30 other people are answering the very same question. It is your responsibility to make your response to stand out from the others -- as I am sure you can imagine, I don't want to read the exact same remarks 30 times. Based on the question prompt, discuss the intellectual idea I am asking you to reflect upon, and support your response with course material (quotes, data, statistics, research studies, author’s findings, etc.), using your own words and analysis.

 

The Essay question is listed in WebStudy, under the Assignments tab, in the Essay section. Essay responses must be submitted on time and must contain a minimum of 2000 words and maximum of 2400 words. You MUST include at the end of the post the word-count in order for me to grade your assignment (the word count is automatically provided in most word processing programs). Too short and too long posts will be penalized by a loss of points. If you do not answer the question prompt or write the required length of words, you will not pass the essay – this means you will earn a zero (0) for the assignment.

 

Make your work unique! For instance, try and come up with a solution to a problem, or discuss how we can organize and fight against injustice, etc. Also, please do not use “filler” or moral statements in your responses. This means you should stay away from comments which don’t add any intellectual protein to our conversation, such as

“I do not like discrimination”

“I do not see color”

“I am not racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.”

“Everyone should be treated equally”

 

Each response should be written as a formal paper, and each question requires a detailed response. Please make sure to proof-read your essay prior to submission. I will detract points for poor grammar and spelling. The assignments for this class require very detailed responses. In order to receive credit for your work you must cite the textbook a minimum of ten times in your essay. Please note Wikipedia is not an academic source and you may not use it for your assignments.

 

Essays will be graded according to the following criterion: thesis statement, examples to support position, clear writing and grammar, organization & structure, respectful nature of the post (you may disagree or take issue with any material in the course as long as you do so in a professional and respectful manner). Please see the grading rubric for concrete details regarding grading.

 

 

SMARTHINKING.COM – tutorial service you MUST use for your essay!

Smarthinking.com is an online tutorial service, and the tutors there can help you improve your writing, answer questions you have, and even work with you on math and science homework, projects, etc. You must submit the essay for this class to Smarthinking.com, ask for written feedback, and then revise your essay based on the tutor’s feedback in order to receive credit for this assignment.

 

This means you should write your essay, proof read it, and send it to Smarthinking.com for feedback. Once you receive the feedback from Smarthinking.com, revise your essay based on the feedback from the tutor. Remember, the purpose of submitting your work to the Smarthinking.com tutor is to improve your work.

 

As such, once you receive feedback from the tutor, you must take the time to re-write your entire essay. When you submit your work to me, you must turn in the original essay, the Smarthinking.com feedback, and your revised essay, all in ONE document. I need all three documents together. The point of submitting your essay to the tutor is to find out the weak areas of your paper in order to rewrite a stronger essay.  FYI - The tutor will not grade your assignment, I will. Please note that well written, grammatically cogent essays are easy and pleasurable to read!

 

Make sure to submit your essay to Smarthinking.com at least one week in advance of the actual due date so that you have enough time to revise your work. I will not accept the excuse that Smarthinking.com did not send your work back in a timely manner as a legitimate reason for late work. If you do not submit your work to Smarthinking.com you will receive a zero (0) for the assignment, no exceptions.

 

Remember, the purpose of submitting your work to the tutor is to improve your work. As such, once you receive written feedback from the Smarthinking.com tutor, you must take the time to strengthen your work by rewriting the essay.

I WILL NOT ACCEPT LATE SUBMISSIONS FOR THE ESSAY.

 

ESSAY GRADING MATRIX

Formal introduction with a clear thesis statement (claim) 1 point

Directional clause (examples you will use to support claim) 1 point

Use of assigned course material as per the syllabus 5 points

Proper citation of course material using ML guidelines 1 point

Discussion of organizational discrimination 1 point

Discussion of structural discrimination 1 point

Total 10