Developments in the American Economy--first year writing seminar--Think, Discuss, Write
Take a side on the following proposition-- Proposition: immigration should be reduced to a low-enough number (say 250,000 per year) so that 1) immigrants would assimilate--learn English, adopt our culture, be loyal only to the US, and 2) immigrants would not reduce the wages of natives.
What historical perspective on these issues do you get from reading The Jungle? Do you agree or disagree with the above proposition? Why? Look at the accordion essay video (expository writing button) to get a general idea about how to write an argument essay.
First draft should be a slide show with the header on each slide being the topic sentence of a paragraph and each slide contains the key three sentences of that paragraph. A beginning slide gives the title of your essay in the header and the sentences in the first slide should be the topic sentences in the headers of your subsequent slides. The last slide should have in the header the key conclusion with the sentences summarizing how you got there. There should be no more than 10 slides, no fewer than five and you should spend no more than two good hours on the assignment plus the time needed to review the web pages below, the Jungle and the video on my webpage on the accordion essay.
In short, two good hours of writing sometime between now and Wed Oct 24. Good luck!
Below are some web places where the immigration debate is taking place.
Anti-immigration
http://teamtancredo.org/pdfs/immigration.pdf
http://teamtancredo.org/tancredo_issues_index.php (choose video on immigration)
http://www.numbersusa.com/about/nobashing.html
http://www.numbersusa.com/about/ethics.html
Pro-immigration (or anti-anti-immigration)
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/05/invasion-repeating-history.html
http://www.afsc.org/immigrants-rights/default.htm
http://www.maldef.org/immigration/index.htm http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_viewpoints_immigrants_and_jobs
