L216: LAMP Sophomore Seminar

Business and the Humanities

Topic:  The Price of Prosperity

Paper I:             Point of Departure Essay

Length:             About 2 pages

Due:                 Beginning of class, Wednesday, January 15

Grading:            Pass/Fail, with pass divided into 1 (high pass), 2 (pass), 3 (low pass).  Score will be figured into your “miscellaneous assignment” grade.  See course guide for details.

Handing it in:     Please hand in two copies, one with and one without your name on it.

Introduction

This essay is designed to give you the opportunity to establish for yourself a beginning point in L216, both as a writer and as a thinker regarding our course topic.  Thus, in writing your essay, you should pay close attention to the details of writing as well as the thoughts your writing represents.

You are not expected to conduct research of any kind to complete this assignment.  However, your ideas and assertions must be supported by at least three cultural products, such as movies, TV shows, advertisements, promotions, consumer goods, or even retail displays.  You may also wish to use conversations you have had or books, articles, or other printed material you have read.  In essence, you may refer to any sort of cultural production to support your ideas.  Most important here is that you demonstrate your ability to support your argument with evidence beyond your own opinions.

Assignment

Using at least three cultural productions with which you are familiar, write a short essay in which you respond to the question: “How do the core values of the capitalist-consumerist business world (i.e. the desire to sell products and make money) shape the values of our culture at large?”

This topic is obviously huge and broad, so your first task should be to narrow your focus to a manageable topic.  Joe Successful, for example, believes that the values of the capitalist-consumerist business world have resulted in a more religious society.  His paper, then, would make that assertion and then discuss three examples that demonstrate the link between our society’s desire to make money and buy things and increased church attendance or personal piousness.

Criteria for evaluation

1       A high pass (1) will feature a clear argumentative thesis statement that answers the above question in a sophisticated (nuanced) way.  The essay will maintain a focus on that thesis and use evidence from the author’s experience to support the argument and convince the reader that the argument is sound.  Of course, an essay in the 1 range will have few or no mechanical, spelling, or grammatical errors and the author will have paid close attention to the details of good style.

2       A pass (2) will offer a unifying thesis, but it may somewhat confusing or represent an unremarkable argument about the topic.  The essay will remain mostly focused on the thesis and evidence from the three sources will generally relate to the essay’s main idea, though the relationship may not always be clear to the reader.  There may be some distracting mechanical, spelling, grammatical errors.

3       A low pass (3) may lack a clearly stated unifying thesis.  The essay may lose focus or get off topic.  The author’s choice of evidence may not relate well to the thesis and/or the connection between the supporting evidence and the thesis may not be apparent.  There may be several distracting mechanical, spelling, grammatical errors.

NP     Failure to complete the assignment on time, failure to refer to three cultural productions, or failure to address the question as outlined above will result in an NP (no pass), requiring the student to revise the essay for a score of 3.