English 102 —1st Formal Essay —McFarland--SPRING—2017--

English 102 —1st  Formal Essay —McFarland--SPRING—2017--

For this essay we will be investigating issues related to our book, Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, and to the movie, Crude Awakening. One of the intriguing arguments that gets built in both the book and the movie is that this contemporary life that many of us take for granted, is actually the result of specific events in history, especially including the discovery and rise of Oil.

For this paper you will be examining this claim and taking a stand about whether or not you think this is true.  You will be answering the following questions as you build your paper. It is OK to argue more than one side of a question if that is how you feel. There are 6 questions here. You can skip one or two of them if you like.  And you can explore other questions that you come up with yourself, but be sure to run them by me first.

1.     How do you explain the amazing population growth that we see in the chart in the book on page 15 (In other words, what are some specific things that caused population to explode after 1860) ?

2.     What are some consequences of adding this additional 5 billion people to the planet, from 1860 up to today?

3.     Why do we allow these consequences to happen?

4.     What is your own relationship to energy use?

5.     Hartmann argues that we are modern day Slaves; what is your opinion of this metaphor as a way to explain our situation?

6.     How do we gain freedom from this slavery?

In order to support your points, you need to use the ideas found in the book, the movie, your research, and in any other handouts, books, etc. that we have access to.

You must average a minimum of 1-2 short quotes per paragraph. You need to have at least one quote in all your body paragraphs. Quote length in a paper of this length should be no more than 1-2 lines.

The essay’s page minimum is 6 full pages…(BNDJTM…) Be sure you do Rule of 3 for each question that you pick. That will help you reach the page minimum.

Be careful that you don’t simply retell the history of the how humans have used energy over the years. Use these moments in history to SUPPORT the analytic points you want to make. Paragraph topic sentences should start with concepts. Paragraph topic sentences should also feature KEYWORDS, which are taken from the essay assignments tasks.

The paper is due Feb 27. First draft is due Feb 22, but you will be bringing in paragraphs that will end up in your paper before that time. (In Fact, probably every class you will be doing this between now and the time of the draft day.)

Best of Luck!!