Essay 3 Requirements
 
(Items in red are new to Essay 3.)
1.    Explores how one's gender may affect one's attitude toward the American Dream and/or one's ability to achieve it.  Part of this exploration will include reading and thinking deeply about one essay in Speculations or handout.  If you wish to explore another question that arises from the readings, you may do so with my permission.

2.    Has an idea that is complex and intriguing in some way. 

3.    Has an introduction that pulls readers into your question/issue and gives them a general but clear sense of what will follow.

4.    Has stories and observations that help explain this idea, combined with sections in which you reveal your thinking about the idea. You must also use an idea from the essay of your choice (from Speculations or handout) in a substantive way to introduce, develop, or challenge your own idea.

5.    Leads the reader through the parts of the essay in a way that the reader sees where you're headed and gives the reader a sense of having arrived somewhere by the conclusion.

6.    Conveys a sense of your writer's voice--without being too informal and "talky."  That is, the style of the essay has a certain enlivening energy to it.

7.    Follows MLA format, 3-4 pages long, with metatext and Works Cited page, submitted to Learning Space and submitted as a printed copy.  Cites page numbers using MLA in-text format.

Although there are several requirements for this essay, there is really just one that is fundamental:  You need to figure out, with your classmates' and my assistance, how to write about the American Dream and gender/race/class/etc. in a way that gets both you and the reader engaged in an idea and that pulls the reader into a journey of your thinking.