A Stranger In Strange Land Analysis

The assignment I made for my students is to pair up against each other to persuade their classmates of their viewpoint on the chosen subject. This is a valuable and worthwhile assignment because it encourages students to write about something they are passionate about and to put in the effort to persuade the class to see their point. Most students are very passionate about something, whether it is something simple like sports and cars or something with a large impact at a national or global level, such as global warming and abortion. This assignment gives them the ability to choose any topic they like. Since most students do not care too much for school work this is an important aspect of the assignment; if it is boring or they are uninterested in the subject their interest level in their work will go down significantly. If this happens their work will not be nearly as good and they will put less time into the assignment. This is the exact principle we saw in A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing Across the Curriculum, by Lucille P. McCarthy, where Dave Garrison consistently performed better in classes he enjoyed and worse in classes he did not. By being less interested students most likely would not put in as much effort, they would be doing the assignment solely for the grade. Students will also have better arguments for something they actually believe in and may even have a decent amount of background knowledge they can bring into their paper. Even though research is not required for this paper hopefully they will choose to research; since they feel strongly about the subject they wouldn't want their viewpoint to “lose” in the debate. Since the students get to choose their partner, as well as what topic they want to do, they are most likely going to choose a friend. …show more content…
Since almost everybody hates to lose, especially to one of their friends, they are going to try and win the debate. A bonus for the partner that is chosen as the victor is five percent extra credit on their paper. Another motive to do well on the assignment is that they have to present their argument in front of the class. Nobody wants to stand in front of a group and look like an idiot so they are going to make their argument strong and show everyone that they know what they are talking about and hopefully win five bonus points while they are at it. I placed a lot of the focus on allowing students freedom in their topics because I believe that it is a critical factor in how well the end result will turn out. A good or great final paper shows greater understanding of the concepts behind the paper, which would be how to write persuasively and how to use research (which most good papers should have) to help them persuade. Since this is an academic paper I choose the normal school type style/voice that we are all used to writing in, but because the purpose of this writing is to persuade rather than to demonstrate proper grammar and spelling I put very little emphasis into the points received for the “English” aspect of the paper. Ten points are given if the student meets the length and formatting requirements, although if the length is so far off they will lose points for their content as well. I put most of