Writing Homework Help

This week, we have embarked upon the second section of our course. As we move from food to the economy, we will find that some of the same issues apply, including justice, race, class, and more. As you conduct the readings in this section, it is worth keeping those larger themes in mind. Our writing should ideally be focused on two things: the larger themes that the articles raise, such as the ones I just listed, and the specific details of the articles (i.e. where those themes are expressed). In other words, we want to keep in mind what the articles have to say about class (for instance), and we want to focus on precise moments in the articles where evidence is given that supports the eventual claim of the piece.

For this week, you have read two articles, one by Chen, which explores the difficulties facing millennials (a group not much older than you), and one by Lowrey, which investigates a specific policy option, a jobs guarantee. For this week, I would like you to compose a 400 word response to one of these two texts. In this response, you should try to isolate what you think are the key themes/ideas that the text explores. You should try to locate the argument the author is making, and what evidence the author uses to support this claim. You are free to agree or disagree with the text if you wish, but the main focus should be on illustrating the author’s claim. This will require that you describe the problem the author is responding to.

I will give you one bit of help here. Chen is much more definitive than Lowrey.  Although one can intuit an argument in Lowrey’s piece, her article does more to sketch the terms of the debate than to offer a decisive claim. If you choose to write about her article, your piece should summarize what proposal she is observing, what she sees as a potential benefit to it, and what she locates as potential problems. In the case of Chen, you should likewise address what issue he explores, but your response should focus more on why he arrives at the claim he makes. What evidence does Chen use to support his proposal?