SWA #21

Read: 

• CR: “How Much Are We Willing to Share?” Monica Potts
• CR: “Wall of Sound,” Nikil Saval

Assignment:

• SWA #21: Read one of the three student essays (see above and the Exploratory Paper folder) and answer the following questions on your blog:

1Q: What is the issue? Is its importance explained?
1A: " The main message involves the fact that the “1%”—the wealthiest Business owners and Government officials of America possess roughly half of America’s wealth, while many of the “99%” go jobless and often starve." The issue is clearly stated above, where the wealth of America is considered improperly distributed across the population. Nevertheless, the exact importance of the issue is not explained clearly, as the author assumes that the reader is one of those 99% who knows people who are jobless, who often starve, etc.

2Q:  Are four distinct perspectives easily identifiable? What are they? Is the thesis informative and concise?
2A: The four distinct perspectives are active protesters of the Occupy Movement, outside sympathizers of the movement that are not directly involved, political figures that oppose the movement, and concerned citizens that are directly affected by the movement. The thesis is a bit difficult (for myself) to find, but I think that the thesis examines the various sides of the issue to take a stance on why the Occupy Movement is a positive one for society.


3Q: Do the introduction and conclusion offer effective leads to and out of the argument? How do you know?
3A: Both the introduction and the conclusions offer effective transitions into the argument, but the conclusion lacks a sense of finale. It mirrors the overall introduction, and in my opinion, could almost serve as a better first paragraph than the introduction itself serves. The essay overall lacks a defining statement about the issue, as to whether it is good or bad, but I think that the author is taking the stance of Occupy as something good.                                                                                                                                           

4Q: Is the essay effective? Explain? What would you have suggested to the student writer if you had been partnered for peer review?

4A: I would consider the essay to be an effective one because the essay satisfies the prompt. Nevertheless, the author's work is weak grammatically and suffers from punctuation errors often. The introduction and conclusion paragraphs do lead onto the essay's main body (analyzing different groups' views on the subject), but the author fails to suggest a real claim about the movement. In addition, the author does not suggest counter-opinions from those who are against the Occupy movement, something that could help his essay.