Comp 110 Final Essay Assignments First, a review of argument: I have given you and we have discussed, to a degree, the last reading
assignments, which are the sections of the handbook on argument; this is because the last writing
assignments of the semester deal with particularly argument-oriented approaches (not that we
haven’t done some work with argumentation so far). As I pointed out earlier, many if not most of
the readings in the text are argumentative. I suppose that there are two ways to differentiate
argument from more expository forms: Comp 110 Final Essay Assignments
(1) An argumentative thesis needs to be proven; that is, someone could state as a thesis the
opposite or some other idea about the same issue and it could seem possible as well, which makes
it the arguer’s purpose to convince the reader that her/his thesis is the most accurate one. For
instance, if you were to say that many people are becoming un- or under-employed, it would not
be an arguable thesis because (a) it is easily provable with some statistics and (b) no one could
accurately say that it isn’t true. However, if you were to say that many people are becoming un-
or under-employed because the survival of our economy depends on it (for which you could make
a case), it would be an arguable thesis because someone else could make a case that many people
are becoming un- or under-employed because of corporate greed.
Writing Assignments: Comp 110 Final Essay Assignments
Myth Essay
Since we’ve spent the semester exploring various American Myths and our discussions have been on
those myths, those myths—and only those myths—will be our focus. Remember that a myth has two
meanings: 1) something that people perceive as true but is not; 2) something that has taken on such
huge proportions that it has become a basis of societal attitudes. We are dealing with