Love Your Neighbor As You Love Yourself

Non-fiction 
(Lens) Texts: 
“The Golden Rule” Freud 
(Slide)Texts: 
“So Much Water So Close to Home” (pdf)
(https://occ(dot)blackboard(dot)com/bbcswebdav/pid-994230-dt-content-rid-8140901_1/courses/30180.201431/So%20MUCH%20WATER.html)
Assignment: Select one non-fiction text and one story from the above lists. In a thesis-driven essay, develop and answer the following driving question: How do the ideas in the non-fiction (lens) text clarify (or color) the story? In other words, demonstrate how one author’s assertions can be applied to a story in order to enhance and illuminate its meaning. The best papers will move beyond the lens analysis to explain the benefits and/or limitations of seeing through another’s perspective. 
Expectations: Students are expected to produce a specific, complex and relevant thesis, which is developed and explained throughout the body paragraphs. The pattern of organization must reflect the objectives of a lens analysis. Students will be expected use a minimum of 3 assertions from the “lens” text to analyze various scenes from the story. Essays should be a minimum of 4 pages and no more than 5. All drafts and final papers must follow MLA rules. 
Purpose: To engage in critical reading, thinking and writing activities in hopes of generating content worthy of an essay. The goals for essay #2 can be divided into the following skillsets: 
1) Comprehension and Analysis: The first component requires students to demonstrate a thorough understanding of a non-fiction “lens” text. Here, the critical work consists of breaking an author’s assertions down to their key terms, defining and analyzing both denotative and connotative meanings to produce deeper insights. Students work to set aside their own beliefs and assumptions to objectively understand the ideas of another. 
2) Application: The second component asks students to apply the key terminology from the “lens” text to scenes from a story in order to explain and illuminate its meaning. Students continue to set aside their personal ideologies in order to see the story from an outside perspective. 
3) Synthesis and evaluation: The final component requires students to assimilate the source text and the story to create original insights and deeper knowledge. The application analysis allows students to make meaning as they intersect two texts and, more importantly, to practice communicating these new, shiny ideas in written form. At this stage, students are free to express how their own perspective was limited or enhanced by the application process. Keep in mind, an essay worth writing, worth being read is the product of a mind at work—engaging, discovering, creating. 
Advice: Be sure you have a thorough grasp of the non-fiction text as well as the story. Your success on the assignment depends on your selection of assertions from the lens text and scenes from the story. Outlining will help you to match your assertions and scenes. Tip #1 Raise a number of questions about the story that might be answered by the lens text. Tip #2: Locate the scenes in the story related to the questions. Tip #3: Once you’ve raised several questions, turn to the lens texts to consider which author would provide the most insightful answers. Sometimes a question can point to more than one scene from the story. For instance, the above question relates to how Cross rereads the letters in the beginning as well as what he does to them at the end. Though the scenes are far apart in the story’s sequence, they are closely related in terms of content. Therefore, you would want to include both in your application. Tip #4: Be sure you understand the context of each assertion prior to dissecting and analyzing its parts. If you use an assertion from the lens text out of context, you will fail to “see” accurately through the author’s perspective. Read and reread the source text in its entirety to gain mastery of it. Tip #5 Choose assertions that contain charged words or phrases, which allow you to unpack the language and demonstrate its meaning. It’s also a good idea to use assertions that contain different key terms so as to avoid repetition in your body paragraphs. 
Tools: Review the following rules from Clark’s text and incorporate them in your essay:
Rule 5: Watch those adverbs
Rule 7: Fear not the long sentence 
Rule 8: Establish a pattern then give it a twist
Rule 9: Let punctuation control the pace and space.
Grading
Criteria:
Language & Readability: In addition to meticulous copyediting, the writer gives careful consideration to appropriate punctuation, precise, apt, vivid word choice, and a variation of sentence structures. 
Organization: The writer produces a clear, discernable pattern of organization, paragraphs are logically sequenced and unified around specific topics related to the thesis, and the transitions are artful and effective. 
Analysis: The writer demonstrates an insightful understanding of the source text as well as sound, relevant applications, which reveal how the assertions help us to better understand the story. Throughout the paper, the writer accurately represents the source text and the story as s/he maintains striking control over sustained argumentation. The analysis moves beyond repetition and summary to create new knowledge and insights.