Humanities Homework Help

Your job in this assignment is to write a paper on Chapter Four of Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, using one of the supplementary articles on dyslexia as a second source. In Chapter Four, Gladwell claims that dyslexia can be seen as a sort of “desirable difficulty.” Your job in the paper is to wrestle with this claim. As in the first two papers, you should follow the structure we learned in They Say/I Say, beginning with a summary that serves as a springboard to your own thesis and support that thesis in the body of the paper. Despite the fact that the paper begins with a summary, the focus of the paper will be your own original argument, and you should use the supplementary article somewhere in the body of the paper to support that argument. You only have to use one of the supplementary articles, and your choice will likely be determined by your thesis and by whether or not you plan on using the supplementary article as a naysayer. As always, if you’re having trouble with any stages of this assignment, please do not hesitate to let me know.

The following is a model of a possible outline for this paper:

First Paragraph: Summary of the chapter. Ultimately, your summary should look like the example on pages 34-35 of They Say/I Say. It should begin with a strong opening sentence that both mentions the author’s full name and title of the article and encompasses the author’s argument as a whole. As in the example on pages 34-35, the rest of the paragraph should focus on the details of the article that will lead you to your thesis. In doing so, you will want to take special care to avoid creating a “list summary” (which is defined on pages 35-36 of the textbook).

Thesis Statement: State your thesis either at the end of the first paragraph or the beginning of the second paragraph. As in the example on page 35, you should state your thesis in relation to the chapter you just summarized. You can agree with the original chapter, disagree with the original chapter, or be in the middle. Just make perfectly clear where you stand. Use the relevant templates in Chapter Four to help you here. From there, you will go on to state and develop your first supporting point.

Body: The remainder of the paper can be more fluid, but I think a good model to shoot for is three more paragraphs and a conclusion. You want each paragraph in the body to develop a different aspect of your thesis. At the same time, you want the paragraphs to feel connected. In other words, there should be a clear, logical connection between each paragraph. Each paragraph should begin with a clear topic sentence, and the content of the paragraph should focus on that singular topic. Look, for example, at paragraphs three and four from David Zinczenko’s “Don’t Blame the Eater” on pages 462-64 of They Say/I Say. Paragraph three begins: “I grew up as a typical mid-1980s latchkey kid” (391). Zinczenko spends the rest of the paragraph discussing his upbringing and the effect that it had on his weight. Paragraph four begins: “Then I got lucky” (462). From there, Zinczenko discusses the changes he made, the positive effect those changes had for him, and ends by suggesting that not everyone who grows up as he did will be as lucky. The paragraphs are connected, but each paragraph serves a different function. Paragraph three establishes a problem. Paragraph four presents a possible solution, then expounds on the feasibility of this solution in American culture as a whole. That is the kind of clear link that you want to build between your distinct paragraphs. On page 107 of They Say/I Say, there is an image of three sentences holding hands. The implication of the image, of course, is that you want each sentence to be connected to the previous sentence while still pushing the essay forward. The same is true for individual paragraphs. So keep that image in your head while writing: each paragraph should build off the previous paragraph and work toward the next paragraph.

As the authors of They Say/I Say note on page 27, you also want to keep the “they say” in view as you move through your essay. At some point in the body of your paper, then, you should mention Gladwell’s chapter at least one more time. I do not want to give a specific prescription where this should appear in your paper, as it will likely vary depending on your particular argument. But it should be there.

Conclusion: You may have been taught in the past that the function of a conclusion is to restate your thesis and main points. That is a good start, but it is also only half of what makes a truly great conclusion. I want you to think of restating your thesis as the beginning of the conclusion, but the ultimate goal of the conclusion is to reach beyond summarizing your thesis and main points and toward the larger implication of why you think it is important for someone to read your essay. The big question you want to ask yourself is: What are the larger implications of your thesis? This is your chance to end with a bang. To instruct or persuade your reader. To leave your reader with something big to chew on. The last paragraph of Sanford J. Unger’s “The New Liberal Arts” on page 232 of They Say/I Say is a good example of this.