Personal Response Essay

Total Value — 5%

Due Date: 9/5/06

General Guidelines:

• Page count: 2 full pages minimum to 3 full pages maximum, plus an additional page, which is the works cited page. If your paper falls short of the minimum required page count the grade will certainly suffer.
• Make certain that the essay has a thesis.
• Use MLA Style Guidelines.
• Use the formatting guidelines established during class lectures.
• Remember to title your essay in the form of a two part title. The two parts should be separated by a colon, and neither part should read “personal response essay.”
• Remember: this assignment is an argumentative essay, so it must have a strong thesis.

Background:

• Students are writing about the following article: Promoting Argumentative Discourse: A Design-Based Implementation and Refinement of an Astronomy Multimedia Curriculum, Assessment Model, and Learning Environment, by Gita Taasoobshirazi and Daniel T. Hickey. The article appears in The Astronomy Education Review, 2005, volume 4, issue 1. The url is http://aer.noao.edu/figures/v04i01/04-01-02-03.pdf
• The article must be accessed from a computer with Adobe Acrobat Reader. Any OSU/NOC writing lab will have computers with this software.
• We will spend class time discussing this article, so students do not have to work through an analysis on their own.
• Students must bring a copy of the article to class on 8/24/06 and 8/29/06.

Prompt:

• Students are to devise their own thesis and argument over the topic covered in the Taasoobshirazi and Hickey article.

Due Date: 9/5/06