Karen Gaffney
English I
Essay #3 Assignment
Tues., Nov. 8
 Election Day! Don't forget to vote!
 Read Essay #3 Assignment for today's class (assignment sheet distributed in class
on Thurs., Nov. 3)
 Elaine Showalter, “Window on Reality: American Idol and the Search for
Identity” (184-187)
 Damien Cave, “On Sale at Old Navy: Cool Clothes for Identical Zombies” (154157)
 Kate Tuttle, “Television and African Americans” (201-206)
 Sign up for individual conference
Thurs., Nov. 10
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Tues., Nov. 15
 Bring 3 copies of your Rough Draft of Essay #3 for Peer Workshop
 If possible, bring the pop culture you're analyzing (if it's in print form)
 Being unprepared for or skipping the peer workshop will lower you essay grade by
one full letter grade and you lose the opportunity to revise
 Receive and discuss Essay #4 Assignment
Thurs., Nov. 17
 No class meeting
 Instead, meet with Karen Gaffney for an individual conference about your rough
draft of Essay #3. Bring any questions from the peer workshop. Bring any new drafts
if you’ve begun to revise.
 All conferences are held in the professor’s office, S 335.
 Skipping the conference will count as an absence, and you will lose the
opportunity to revise.
Tues., Nov. 22
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No class meeting (I am out of town at a conference)
Email me if you have any questions or want feedback on your thesis
Work independently on Essay #3
Essay #3 due. When you submit Essay #3, it should be in a folder with the
following: peer workshop sheets, rough drafts from peer workshop, and the rough
draft with my comments. Please mark your final draft “FINAL” so I know which
version to grade. The final draft should meet the following criteria: 5 pages,
double-spaced, word-processed, proofread, spell-checked, 1 inch margins,
academic font, 10-12 font size, page numbers, in-text citation MLA style, with a
Works Cited page (this page does not count toward the 5 page requirement)
 For every day you submit your essay late, its grade will be lowered a full letter
grade and you lose the opportunity to revise.
 Meet in the library's computer lab for introduction to research
 Bring your RVCC login and password for the computer
 Bring Essay #4 Assignment you received on Tues., Nov. 15.
 Come to class with questions about the assignment and with some ideas for Essay
#4 that you can begin to research.
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Purpose:
In your first out of class essay, you focused on placing 2 texts side by side and argued about a particular
relationship between the 2 texts. Then, in your second out of class essay, you took that analysis a step further
by exploring how your reading of one essay impacted your reading of another essay. Now, you’re ready to go
even further. Rather than focus on 2 texts from your book, I am asking you to take 1 previously assigned text
(from any time in the semester) from your book and apply it to a specific piece of popular culture. In other
words, does the popular culture prove or disprove the author’s argument?
This is not a research paper; please focus only on the 1 essay from your textbook and the 1 piece of popular
culture. Your research paper may actually grow out of this assignment, if you choose, but don’t get distracted
by research just yet.
Try to focus on a piece of popular culture that is fairly specific: a single episode of a TV show, a tv
commercial, a song, a print advertisement, a single magazine, a billboard, a greeting card, etc. You might
decide that it serves your argument better to bring in 2 items that are very closely related, like 2 episodes of
the same tv show, or 2 greeting cards, or 2 print advertisements, but try to stay very focused. I would
discourage you from focusing on an entire movie, for example, because that can be a little overwhelming.
However, if you talk to me in advance about coming up with a very focused argument, then it might work.
Regardless of what type of popular culture you wish to focus on, you must be able to watch it over and over.
If you choose an episode of a tv show, you must have it recorded so that you can watch it repeatedly and
develop specific evidence (like quotes).
The most important thing to keep in mind is that you want to make a clear, focused argument about how the
essay from the book can be applied to the popular culture. The essay you choose might or might not already
talk about pop culture. If your essay is not a direct analysis of pop culture (like John Cloud’s essay, for
instance), then, chances are, your argument will follow one of the following models:
1) The pop culture provides insightful evidence that helps to prove the essay’s argument.
2) The pop culture provides evidence that contradicts the essay’s argument.
3) The pop culture proves one aspect but disproves another aspect of the essay’s argument. (If you
choose this option, make sure you’re very careful to be specific about exactly what is consistent
between the pop culture and the essay and what is a contradiction.)
However, if your essay is already a direct analysis of popular culture (like Andre Mayer’s essay), then your
argument will probably follow one of these models:
4) The pop culture is the same type of pop culture that the essay analyzes and either does or does not
provide further evidence to prove the essay’s argument.
5) The pop culture is a different type of pop culture than what the essay analyzes and does or does not
provide further evidence to prove the essay’s argument.
Organization:
I am not providing an organizational model for you to follow either for this assignment or for Essay #4. At
this point, you should be able to be able to create an organization that will best serve your purpose.
Other reminders:
 Your thesis should be an argument; do not state the obvious.
 Your reader has not read the essay nor seen or examined your pop culture. (This is practice for the
research essay in which you need to be able to explain everything for your reader.)
 Create clear topic sentences and fluid transitions that will help your reader follow your logic. Your
topic sentences should introduce your specific area of support and link it to your argument. If your
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topic sentence states a fact, then it is easy to fall into the trap of summarizing throughout the whole
paragraph, rather than analyzing.
You may weave in personal experience if you feel that it would strengthen your argument. However,
the focus of your essay should be on analyzing a relationship between the two texts.
Make sure you are bringing in specific examples from both the essay and the popular culture in order
to prove your argument.
It is probably to your advantage to discuss 3-4 areas of support.
Feel free to use “I.”
Please review the checklist from Essay #1 before submitting your final draft of Essay #3.
Include proper in-text citation MLA style and a Works Cited page MLA style.
Reminder about the revision opportunity:
As long as you are prepared for the peer workshop, attend your conference with me, and submit your essay in
on time, then you can revise this essay. All revisions are due on or before the last day of class.
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