Applying Your Skills: Additional Essay Assignments

Write a narrative on one of the topics listed below, using the elements and techniques of narration you learned in this chapter. Depending on the topic you choose, you may need to do research to gather support for your ideas. (For more on locating and documenting sources, see Chapters 22, 23, and 24.)

Synthesizing Ideas

Harsh Treatment of Outcasts

Both “Right Place, Wrong Face” and “The Lady in Red” describe the harsh treatment of someone seen as an outcast — a person who does not deserve respect or courtesy.

Analyzing the Readings

  1. Compare the situations that each man found himself in and the ways that others responded to him. Then consider how each man responded to those who treated him harshly.
  2. Compare the social issues that each author addresses in the narrative of his experience.

Essay Idea

Write an essay describing a situation in which you feel you or someone you know was treated as an outcast. Describe the background to the situation, the treatment received, and the response to the treatment.

TO EXPRESS YOUR IDEAS

  1. Write a narrative about an incident or experience that you see differently now than you did when it happened.
  2. In “Right Place, Wrong Face,” Alton Fitzgerald White says he always believed that the police “were supposed to serve and protect” him (para. 2). After the incident he describes in the essay, he feels otherwise. Write a narrative describing an incident involving police officers or law enforcement agents that you may have experienced, observed, or read about. Did the incident change your attitude about police or law enforcement or confirm opinions you already held?

TO INFORM YOUR READER

  1. Write an essay informing your reader about the characteristics of a strong (or weak) relationship, the habits of successful (or unsuccessful) students, or the ways of keeping (or losing) a job. Use a narrative to support one or more of your main points.

TO PERSUADE YOUR READER

  1. In “The Alternate History of Susan Chung: One Woman’s Quest to Find Her Birthparents,” the author says that her “confidential and ‘closed’ adoption at the age of 2 months severed all ties between [her] birth family and [her]” (para. 2). Write an essay taking a position on whether adoptees should have the right to contact their birthparents. Support your position using a story from your own experience or from the experience of a friend, a family member, or “The Alternate History of Susan Chung.”
  2. In “Right Place, Wrong Face,” White takes a position on racial profiling. Write an essay persuading your reader to take a particular stand on an issue of your choice. Use a story from your experience to support your position or tell how you arrived at it.

CASES USING NARRATION

  1. Write a paper for a sociology course on the advantages of an urban, suburban, or rural lifestyle. Support some of your main points with events and examples from your own experiences.
  2. Write a draft of the presentation you will give as the new human resource director of a nursing care facility in charge of training new employees. You plan to hold your first orientation session next week, and you want to emphasize the importance of teamwork and communication by telling related stories from your previous job experiences.