STUDENTS WRITE
In this and chapters 6 through 10, we will follow the work of Latrisha Wilson, a student in a first-year writing course who was assigned to write about surveillance and loss of privacy.
Wilson decided to use questioning to narrow her topic and freewriting to generate ideas about her narrowed topic. Here is an example of her questioning.
LATRISHA WILSON’S QUESTIONING
What are some examples of surveillance in the US?
Cameras in retail stores and at bank cash machines
Cell phone surveillance and tracking
Airport security checkpoints
Online surveillance
Nanny cams
Traffic cameras and street corners
GPS devices worn by people on probation
Undercover police
Cameras in government buildings
Cameras on school buses
Wilson decided to explore further the types of surveillance commonly conducted in the United States. She did so by asking another question:
Which of these types of surveillance are the least “obvious”?
They disguise their identity.
They often become friends with the people they are investigating.
They participate in drug deals.
Oftentimes, their family members do not even know about their assignments.
They become the “bad guy” in order to get the “bad guy.”
Who is hiding behind our computer screens?
Valuable information about us is gathered from the Web.
Lots of information is gathered without our consent.
Google studies gmail accounts for keywords and sells the information to companies.
Information on Facebook is also sold to marketers.
After looking over the answers to her questions, Wilson decided to focus on types of surveillance. The following excerpt from her freewriting shows how she started to develop her topic.
LATRISHA WILSON’S FREEWRITING
I feel like I have no privacy. Just the other day I read how the mayor of my city brags of his new plan to put surveillance cameras on all the big street corners. There are already lots of traffic and security cameras. Soon there won’t be anywhere I can walk without being monitored by some government employee sitting behind his desk. My life is like a movie anybody can watch. A reality tv show. If I’m not breaking the rules, what right does anyone have to track me? I’m not even safe going online. Netflix and YouTube keep suggesting movies to me. Stores where I have only shopped once keep e-mailing me about their new products. I get so much junk mail that Gmail just a potential consumer. What happened to my right to privacy?
As you work through chapters 6 through 10, you will see how Wilson develops her tentative thesis statement in Chapter 6, her first draft in Chapter 7, a specific paragraph in Chapter 8, and her final draft in Chapter 9. In Chapter 10, you will see a paragraph from her final draft, edited and proofread to correct sentence-level errors.