Short Writing Assignment

1.

 
For your first short writing assignment I want you to do two things:

Copy and paste the text into a document and underline (or otherwise highlight) the thesis statements. Of what is the point the author trying to convince you?
Then, in the same document, paraphrase the argument. You need NOT evaluate the argument; you must merely restate the argument in your own words. 

Please upload your paraphrased argument to Canvas by 11:55 PM on the due date.
The question about whether or not to have children is of course prudential in part; it’s raises concerns about what is or is not in one’s own interests. But it is also an ethical question, for it is about whether to bring a person (in some cases more than one person) into existence — and that person cannot, by the very nature of the situation, give consent to being brought into existence. Such a question also profoundly affects the well-being of existing people (the potential parents, siblings if any, and grandparents).  And it has effects beyond the family, on the broader society, which is inevitably changed by the cumulative impact — on things like education, health care, employment, agriculture, community growth and design, and the availability and distribution of resources — of individual decisions about whether to procreate. The burden of proof — or at least the burden of justification — should therefore rest primarily on those who choose to have children, not on those who choose to be childless.  The choice to have children calls for more careful justification and thought than the choice not to have children because procreation creates a dependent, needy, and vulnerable human being whose future may be at risk.  The individual who chooses childlessness takes the ethically less risky path. After all, nonexistent people can’t suffer from not being created.  They do not have an entitlement to come into existence, and we do not owe it to them to bring them into existence. But once children do exist, we incur serious responsibilities to them.

2.

 
Diagramming Sentences:
For your second short writing assignment you will be diagraming the ten sentences listed below. Diagramming sentences has not been much in vogue as a pedagogical device for the past thirty years or so. There are, however, many grammarians and English instructors who hold that analyzing a sentence and portraying its structure with a consistent visual scheme can be very helpful—both for language beginners and for those trying to make sense of the language at any level, especially for language learners who tend to be visual-learning types.
Please review the accompanying PowerPoint Presentation. Afterwards, please diagram the following ten sentence and upload to Canvas. You may write it out by hand and upload it as an image file or a PDF. You may also use WORD to complete your diagrams if you prefer.
Diagraming Sentences:
Capitol Community College: PowerPoint on Diagraming Sentences
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/powerpoint.htm (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Diagraming PowerPoint (Links to an external site.)
Tips For Diagramming Sentences
When diagramming sentences, the easiest way to start is to identify the parts of speech and the parts of the sentence.

Identify your subject (What is the sentence about?)
Identify your verb (What is the subject of the sentence doing?)
List any articles, adjectives or adverbs (i.e. words or phrases that modify a subject, object or verb)
List any prepositional or modifying phrases (Phrases that modify, or provide additional information, about something in the sentence)

Once you have identified the different parts of the sentence and thought about how they fit together, it is easy to begin your diagram

 Your subject and verb go on your base line, with a straight line between them.
Adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases and modifying phrases go below your base line, on slanted lines below the thing they are modifying.
Dependent clauses have their own base line, and the sentences are connected with dotted lines and the conjunction.

Diagramming sentences can be difficult at first, especially with complex sentences. However, it can help provide you with a deep understanding of grammar rules and parts of speech. The best way to get better at diagramming sentences is to practice.
Diagraming Sentences:

Mary waltzed.
Mary waltzed gracefully.
Mary danced a waltz.
Mary gracefully danced a waltz by Strauss.
My car is yellow.
The dish ran away with the spoon.
The moon is made of green cheese.
Aardvarks are ugly animals.
Unicorns are white and have one horn.
One American is robbed every 4 minutes. 

  

3.

For your third short writing assignment please review my PowerPoint on Tips for Writing Essays and/or review my notes on the same subject.
Short Writing Assignment- 3 Answering Essay Questions -PowerPoint Links to an external site. (Links to an external site.)
Afterwards I want you to review the essay question below and then:

List the special terms would you need to explain in order to answer this essay fully.
Outline how you would develop an essay response to this prompt (i.e. where would you begin and follow though to the end. (You do NOT need to actually write an essay, just a skeletal outline of what you would have to cover and in what order to answer this question fully.)

Please upload this to Canvas by the due date.
Essay Prompt:
For Aristotle, what is the difference between an essential and an accidental property? Give an example of each. If a given substance loses one of its essential properties it said to no longer exist. Explain what Aristotle means by this. Were I to lose weight what sort of change would this be? When I die, what sort of change will this be?