WORTH: potentially worth 5 extra semester points (see below for grading scale)
LENGTH: 750 - 900 Words
CAN THIS BE TURNED IN LATE?: NO
DUE: 4/24 by blackboard by classtime
BE
SURE TO FOLLOW THE FILE-NAMING CONVENTIONS FOR THIS COURSE
(5% penalty if you do not).
Hussein_sa_springbreakextracredit
GRADING SCALE
| grade | semester points |
|---|---|
| 96-100 | 5 |
| 90-95 | 4 |
| 87-90 | 3 |
| 82-86 | 2 |
| 78-81 | 1 |
| 75-77 | .5 |
| <74 | 0 |
To complete this extra-credit assignment, you will need to watch two documentaries.
1) The Central Park Five, available for $3.99 from Amazon streaming
2) "The Confessions" documentary from the PBS Frontline series (free)
In her documentary The Central Park Five, Sarah Burns argues that racism best explains the behavior of the criminal justice system that led to the wrongful conviction and incarceration of the Central Park Five. You might consider this explanation of the case as Burns's thesis.
The PBS documentary portrays a different but recent case (sometimes dubbed the "Norfolk Four case") that shares certain similarities with the Central Park Five case.
Does the "Norfolk Four case" (as portrayed by the PBS documentary) (A) contradict (B) complicate or (C) is irrelevant to Burns’s thesis. |
|---|
If you argue (A), you will need to demonstrate how and why the meaningful similarities between the cases are so large that Burns’s thesis is essentially destroyed.
If you argue (B) you will need to demonstrate how and why the meaningful similarities between the cases suggest that that Burns’ thesis can only stand with significant revisions and specify what those revisions are and why those revisions to her thesis are needed.
If you argue (C), you will need to demonstrate how and why that the meaningful similarities between the cases are so small that Burns’ thesis remains largely intact.
Writing Guidelines:
Additional Writing Requirements
1) You must have a clear thesis statement within the first two paragraphs of this paper (and preferably in the first paragraph). (-5% pts if you don't)
2) You must underline your thesis statement (-5% pts if you don't)
3) You must have at least twelve points of evidence, with at least five of those twelve coming from each documentary(-15% pts if you don't). Your evidence should be in the form of direct quotations of no more than 10 words. (see here for how to reduce quotations)
The remaining 2 pieces of evidence can come from either documentary.
YOUR PAPER, HOWEVER, MIGHT EASILY HAVE MORE THAN TWELVE PIECES OF EVIDENCE.
4) In paragraphs that present evidence, you must identify your claims by placing a (CL) before them; your points of evidence by placing an (EV) before them; and your warrants by placing a (WA) before them (-5% pts if you don't)
5) Integrate your direct quotations using either METHOD 3 OR METHOD 4 FROM THE EXPLANATION OF HOW TO INTEGRATE QUOTATIONS (-10% IF YOU DO NOT)