FORMALWRITING ASSIGNMENT #2
ROUGH DRAFT: The first version of your rough draft should beprepared and submitted via our Blackboard page by the end of the day on Monday, April 26. Your first draftshould be typed and must be at least 4-5 double-spaced pages in length (withmargins of no more than one inch). You can submit your rough draft as a Word,PDF, or Google Docs document. Any roughdrafts submitted after Monday, April 26 will be considered late and penalizedaccordingly.
RECEIVING FEEDBACK FROM ME: Once you have submitted your roughdraft of this essay, you will have two choices in terms of receiving feedbackfrom me: 1) I will send you written comments on your draft, which you willreceive by Friday, April 30; or 2) you can have a 10 minute individual meetingwith me (via Zoom), in which I will provide spoken comments on your draftthatmeeting will take place by Friday, April 30. I will post a sign-up sheet whereyou can let me know your preference for either written comments or else anindividual meeting. (Please note: if you submit your rough draft after April26, I will only be able to provide you with written comments, since Illalready have arranged times for all the individual meetings.)
FINAL DRAFT: The final draft of your essay will be due by the endof the day on
Monday, May 10. Please submit your final draft via Blackboard; youcan submit it as a
Word, PDF, or Google Docsdocument. The final version of your essay must be at least 5-6 double-spacedtyped pages in length. Any final draftssubmitted after Monday, May 10 will be considered late and penalizedaccordingly.
There are, of course, manysimilarities between Angela Davis ArePrisons Obsolete? and Ruth Wilson Gilmores Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in GlobalizingCalifornia. The primary similarity is that both books deal with prisons andpolicing, analyzing what both authors would describe as the prison industrialcomplex and arguing for the abolition of this system. But there are alsoimportant differences between these two books, at the level of style, approach,and writing techniques, and also in terms of the arguments that each author ismaking.
For this essay, I will ask you todiscuss some of the similarities and differences between Davis and Gilmorestexts. This will involve a careful analysis of selected sections of these twobooks, with a number of specific references to passages from their texts; thatis, be sure to cite and analyze some specific quotes from their texts, ratherthan just making general statements about each book. Try to go beyond theobvious points that can be made too easily. For example, rather than justpointing out some of the very apparent differences, talk about how thesedifferences affect the work that they do as writers. That is, how do thesedifferences affect their language, their tone, their approaches to writing, theway they tell their stories, the audiences they choose to address, and thearguments that they make? Are there similarities in their experiences and intheir approaches? Are there differences in the conclusions that they reachabout their topics, and in the suggestions they make about how to address theproblems that they describe? How would you imagine them responding to eachother if they were brought into a dialogue? (This is something that you, as thewriter, can do: invite Davis and Gilmore to have a conversation, and figure outhow to stage it.)
Obviously, you will not be ableto write about everything in thesetwo books, so your job is also to figure out how to focus your comparison ofthese books around a central argument or main idea of your own. In doing so,feel free to draw on points you have already made about Are Prisons Obsolete? in your first essayalthough you should workto expand and adapt these ideas to fit your argument in this essayand alsopoints that you have raised in your weekly informal writing assignments and inthe Discussion Forum. You are also welcome (but not required) to bring in otherwriters we have read this semester. My only concern is that in discussing thesimilarities and differences between Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmorestexts, and in bringing them into some sort of conversation with each other, youbring in your own perspective and your own arguments as well.
I look forward to reading yourdrafts! Please be in touch with any questions.
