Essay Assignment #3: Legal Cases & Shifted Perspectives ( I CHOOSE ROE V. WADE)
Format: 12 pt. font, double-spaced, 1-inch margins
Length: 5 pages including infographics (I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE INFOGRAPHICS)
Audience: Senior colleague at a law firm
Assignment Purpose: This assignment is designed to improve your research, argumentative, and MLA or APA documentation abilities, as well as your critical thinking and writing skills.
Context of Assignment: Inspired by artist Al Wildey’s images once exhibited in the Ferris Art Gallery, where pictures become blurred through layering so many camera angles that a new perspective emerges, this assignment asks you to consider the perspectives of various stakeholders on a well-known legal case. By looking at a topic from not one perspective, or even two, but many, we are able to avoid seeing topics from extreme sides and instead more fully consider the grey areas in between those extremes. Rarely is any opinion on a topic “all or nothing”; it is typically about varying degrees. The case study handout on Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Venzetti presents a variety of perspectives including those in the form of image or poetry. It becomes clear how prominent legal cases might be used, manipulated, even distorted for various commercial or political purposes. Public cases often take on existences of their own, and often one not especially connected to historical reality. As you read, look for the ways in which the authors quote and misquote, leave out or include certain details, move between image and reality, and between salesmanship and substance in discussing the often-scandalous and sensationalistic history of a case.
Assignment: Students will select a well-known legal case and research not only various opinions on the case but various expressions of those opinions through popular articles, academic articles, court transcripts, political cartoons, films, photographs, etc. You will be researching the connection (or lack thereof) between what you discern as the unbiased facts of the case found in the least biased source and the way the case is presented in various other sources. Students will not only present the research discovered but draw conclusions about limited perspectives, bias, manipulation of facts, and/or other discrepancies among the sources selected. You will be doing close textual and rhetorical analysis of the selections you choose (as with your summary and analysis assignment) in order to demonstrate how the ideas of reality and perspective intersect and manipulate one another. While it will be necessary for you to provide some summary and historical context of each source, your argument and conclusions must be primarily analytical—not mere reportage. I encourage you to use headings as in the summary and analysis assignment, but you can also write a strong essay without them. Final papers will cite in-text four sources, a minimum of one of which must be academic and one of which must be visual. You will also be presenting some of your information through a graphic you create. We will learn about creating and incorporating graphics.
Your argument is not about the verdict of the case itself (you are not a judge or jury), but about how the case was presented by the materials you selected. You are also not an investigator who knows all the facts of the case, so your primary argument cannot be to agree or disagree with an outcome, though you are welcome to share an opinion at the end. The primary argument (i.e. thesis) must be about and emerge from HOW the case is presented through the materials you selected, not what its verdict was and whether you agree with it.
Writing:
1) In the introduction, identify the purpose of the investigation and provide an argumentative thesis about how the case was presented in the materials you chose.
2) In the body of your essay, first clearly and accurately detail the facts of the case.
3) Then, identify your other sources and explain how they present the facts of the case, likely revealing omissions, obfuscations, distortions, etc. Students often find headings to identify the various sources useful.
4) Reveal how viewing multiple sources (one visual) on the same case creates a shifted perspective.
5) Quote from the various sources and cite them properly in MLA or APA format to support your argument.
6) Create and include an infographic in your essay.
7) Draw conclusions about the significance of valuable research work in understanding the case.
Reflection (to be written last but to appear in your document first): Briefly write about what you learned from this assignment and this process and discuss the value of research. Draw some conclusions about how this project connects to your studies or life and contributes to your writing history.
Tips: Be as direct and concise as possible and proofread for the elimination of sentences that do not directly further your ideas.
Help: Submit each portion on time for feedback; exchange your draft with multiple peers (out of class); bring it to the Writing Center; and/or meet with me during office hours or make an appointment.
Submission: Attach a Certification of Authorship page, followed by your reflection.
Do not forget your reflection and certification pages.
Be sure to double-check your sources for at least four–one academic source, a visual you found, and two other sources, academic or popular. Also be sure to have conveyed some of your information from one of your sources in a visual created by you.
** I HAVE 4 SOURCES BUT I DIDNT FIND a visual (photograph, film, cartoon, comic, television show, video, etc.). SO ONOTHER IS NEEDED**
https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/issues/abortion/roe-v-wade
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113
https://www.britannica.com/event/Roe-v-Wade
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/07/14/opinion/focus-group-pro-life-supporters.html
Grading Rubric for Essay Assignments
Criteria Rating
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeContext & Purpose
Demonstrates strong awareness of context, purpose, and audience
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeOrganization & Development of Ideas
Overall plan is clear, ideas and paragraphs are developed, and there are transitions between ideas
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeAnalysis & Conclusions
Analysis and logical and relevant conclusions are evident
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeEvidence & Sources
Texts are explained thoroughly and documented correctly
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeMechanics & Style
Essay is nearly free of grammatical and punctuation errors and the style is appropriate for the assigment
