L216: LAMP Sophomore Seminar

Business and the Humanities

Topic:  The Price of Prosperity

Paper II:           Success in America and Its Costs

Length:            3-4 pages

Due:                Electronic draft attached to email by 12 midnight, 2/7/03.

                        Revision by 5 p.m., Friday, February 14, in BU 218 B.

Grading:          Draft will receive electronic comments and provisional grade; revision only will receive the grade that counts.

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

Introduction:

Our first few class meetings have been marked by reading and discussions of how we as Americans define success.  Some of the texts we have read describe, explain, or exalt the American Dream while others show some of the costs of the relentless quest for success.  In addition to these textual “voices,” we have conducted discussions where our own voices and experiences have been drawn into the conversation about success in America.  I hope that everyone has begun to see that it is not only we who define success in America, but that it defines us by the way it shapes our desires and expectations, sometimes without our even knowing it.  This paper will give you the opportunity to explore the reciprocity of defining success in America and to draw many voices together to make sense of the “conversation” in our seminar thus far.

Assignment:

In 3-4 pages, write an essay in which you discuss the costs that arise from the way Americans typically define success.  In writing this paper, you must work with Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun and at least 2 of the short readings from our Course Reader.  If possible, you are encouraged to draw on the ideas from more than 2 readings, but it is not required.

Helpful Hints

• Double check the Course Guide (pp. 9–11) for explanations of the process by which to write this paper, the criteria by which it will be evaluated, and the format you should use, both for the paper’s layout and the use of quotations.
• Be sure to define how you think Americans define success before you launch into your discussion of the costs.
• Do NOT fashion a paper that resembles a laundry list of costs; DO form a focused argument that discusses and persuades vis-à-vis one cost or area of costs.
• Do not forget your own voice in this project; you should have a definite opinion – a unique and interesting take on the prompt – that is at least informed, if not shaped, by the texts we have read and discussed in class.  Your job is to present this opinion as a persuasive argument, adducing quotations, ideas, and/or inferences from the required texts as support.