Culminating Experience Essay

Didion has led us on a strange ride all semester. We have visited the obscure and the sublime,
from Vegas to Wayne, Lakewood to Sacramento. For this final essay, you have to choose any
SINGULAR topic we visited, develop an argument about it, and write an essay to explore and
develop that argument.

Of course there have to be some kind of guidelines, but not the kind that force you into a
rhetorical position you may not want, or make you write like your sixth grade English professor
talked, just enough rules to keep the playing field relatively even.

1. Whatever topic you choose must be related to the topics we have discussed in class, Didion’s
writing, the DVDs, OR the concepts. Don’t try to cover all the bases, but make sure you continue
to participate in the class when you make your selection and write your paper.

2. Your essay must include a research component, preferably argumentative, rather than factual.
This is not to say you can’t use Wikipedia somewhere in your essay, but that the main research
you use in your paper must have some kind of point (argument) to it. Wikipedia isn’t really
designed to do that, but it can lead you to places where that is happening. The research you
find will help you by giving you ideas to push against. If your research is a blog or otherwise
privately published work, it must be functioning as an essay, not just as a comment, book review,
or summary. Quotes from Didion’s books do not count as research.

3. Your paper needs to follow format, and have a works cited.

My suggestion? Look for the idea which most affected you, the one that stayed with you after
you went home, and then use that to find some research in the same field. This is your chance to
make your stand not only on the materials, but perhaps on the class as well. Whatever you do, be
specific, as the semester runs down, I’m less patient with overly generalized theses and essays.