For this assignment, I want you to write an essay that takes a comprehensive look at a current event (for our purposes, a current event is anything that has occurred in the past three months). You may choose anything you wish to write about as a topic, as long as it is not related to sports or entertainment news (for example, no celebrity gossip). In addition, your topic must be a news story that has acquired coverage by multiple news outlets so, at a minimum, you must have four articles about the subject from four different news outlets (and they all can’t be from the same wire service, such as the Associated Press).
Now, as the events you are writing about are current events, you must assume that nearly, if not all, of the materials you will be using are not common knowledge. As a result, you will find that you will need to provide in-text citations for all of the information that you utilize in your paper. Fortunately, we have covered these MLA methods in class, and you possess the notes and readings necessary to do these things correctly. However, if you need any assistance, please feel free to ask.
In approaching this assignment, remember that you are being asked to write a paper that is more information-oriented than opinion-oriented. In fact, I would like you to approach this material in as even-handed a manner as possible, with your own opinions and biases obscured. Pretend that your audience knows next to nothing about the event that has occurred, and it is your job to give them enough information to make an informed opinion on their own. In short, I want you to avoid being blatantly one-sided in your documentation of the facts (which means no long diatribes about how President Biden is the greatest president ever or the Devil). The only place in the essay where you will be permitted to voice your opinions of the event will be in the conclusion.
Finally, when deciding on your topic, it would be wise to remember to sufficiently narrow down your subject to something you can successfully tackle in three to five pages. For example, attempting to write about marijuana legalization is a book length topic, but writing about the struggle to pass a legalization bill in a particular state (such as, say, Maryland) may be more manageable for this type of assignment. You would be able to bring up the larger issue of general legalization in a supporting paragraph or two (in an effort to provide proper context, of course), but your main focus must remain on the current event itself (attempts to legalize in Maryland). Don’t attempt to bite off more than you can chew.
