Argumentative Essay Select ONE of the following paintings to analyze in your essay:
Painting #1: Untitled subway chalk drawing, 1983
Painting #2: Untitled, May 31, 1984
Painting #3: Crack is Wack, 1986
Painting #4: Silence Equals Death, 1989
Your essay must focus exclusively on ONE painting. Do not try to analyze multiple paintings or Haring’s art career in general. Pick one of the above paintings, and respond to the following question:
How does Haring’s painting (the specific painting that you’ve selected) communicate a message of social justice?
Your essay should have a clear thesis statement that answers the above question. In order to answer the above question, your thesis must:
clearly state the specific social message that the painting communicates (the cause or group of people it advocates for, or a problem in modern society that it tries to raise awareness about)
describe HOW Haring’s imagery and/or style of painting communicates the social message (i.e. HOW does Haring manage to send a specific social message using visual forms, like color, line, shape, symbol, etc.)
Your thesis statement should come at the very end of your introductory paragraph. In your body paragraphs, you must support your thesis (ARGUE and CONVINCE your reader that your interpretation of the painting’s social message is correct) by analyzing specific images in the painting and explaining how these images work together to create the painting’s overall social message. You should use appropriately detailed vocabulary when you’re describing the painting’s imagery and style (choose relevant vocabulary from the Elements of Art
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and Principles of Design
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handouts). Make sure that each paragraph focuses only on 1 or 2 important details in the painting and makes an argument for how these details communicate the social justice message that you identified in your thesis statement. Do NOT try to describe the entire painting in one paragraph. Rather, each paragraph should zoom in on 1 or 2 important images or techniques that Haring uses to communicate his message. By narrowing each paragraph down in this way, you will have the space to go into a lot of detail and to do a deep, rather than hasty, analysis of how Haring uses specific images to communicate his message. Try to analyze a different image, or couple of images, in each paragraph and avoid repeating things that you’ve already said in a previous paragraph. Then, in your conclusion, you can summarize how the images, which you’ve analyzed in different paragraphs, all work together to create the social impact that Haring wanted the painting to have.
In your essay, you must also include 2 quotations from the essays we read about Keith Haring’s art. One quotation must come from Keith Haring’s RollingStone interview, and one quotation must come from Dieter Buchhart’s essay, “The Endless Political Line.” You should select quotations that are relevant to points that you are making in your essay–in other words, only choose a quotation that can help you make YOUR argument about the social message of Haring’s painting. You must properly integrate the quotation into your writing and then analyze it by explaining how it supports your interpretation of the painting’s social message. I recommend that you use the quotations in your body paragraphs (1 quotation in each of your body paragraphs), but if you think it makes sense to put a quotation in your introduction and/or conclusion, I’m fine with that. But generally, it is most helpful to add quotations into body paragraphs because the quotations serve as additional evidence and the body paragraphs are the meat of your argument.
Formatting Requirements
The essay must be organized into multiple paragraphs, including:
An introductory paragraph, which should
introduces the topic you plan to write about
provide the name of the painter and the title of the painting you plan to analyze
provide a clear thesis statement (refer to the lecture on How to Create an Effective Thesis Statement in the Week 6 module, and remember, your thesis should be the very last sentence in your introduction)
2-3 body paragraphs (refer to the lecture on How to Organize a Body Paragraph in the Week 7 module)
A concluding paragraph, which should
Summarize the argument that you’ve made throughout the essay
Include any additional ideas or points that are relevant and interesting (further food for thought) but that didn’t fit into the body paragraphs (remember, body paragraphs need to stay very tightly focused)
Your essay must include 1 quotation from the RollingStone interview with Keith Haring and 1 quotation from Dieter Buchhart’s “The Endless Political Line.” You must select quotations that are relevant–that help you make your argument–and you need to analyze what they mean and how they support your thesis. Quotations need to be properly integrated into your writing (see the lecture on How to Integrate Quotations into Your Essay in the Week 7 module).
Follow MLA style (This means your essay must be typed, double spaced, use 12-point font, 1-inch margins, and include a heading, header, an original title, and a works cited page). Refer to the lecture on MLA style in Week 3, if you have any lingering questions about MLA.)
500-750 words long (2-3 double-spaced pages)
Keep in Mind
This essay should reflect your best writing, which means it should clear, concise, and free of grammatical errors.
Take extra care to avoid common writing mistakes, such as wordiness, sentence fragments, and run-on sentences.
How can you catch grammatical errors, wordiness, fragments, and run-ons? PROOF-READ! And then PROOF-READ again! Do NOT just type up your essay in one go and submit it. After you are done typing it, walk away from the computer. Take a long break. Come back to it with fresh eyes, and reread the whole thing, searching for errors and typos. Repeat this process at least twice!
Due Date
July 23, 2021
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Kandie
3 minutes ago
What is a Body Paragraph?
A body paragraph is a paragraph other than your introduction or conclusion. It is where you introduce and analyze evidence, and where you make an argument for how the evidence supports your essay’s thesis. You will have a different number of body paragraphs depending on the type of essay you’re writing and the complexity of your thesis. For your Argumentative Essay Assignment, you should have 2 or 3 body paragraphs. Each body paragraph should have a clear topic. It should be focused around showing how 1 or 2 related pieces of evidence support a particular idea in your thesis statement. One common problem in student writing is the tendency to try to pack a whole bunch of ideas and points into a single paragraph. When you try to cover too much in a paragraph, your essay will have a hectic feel to it and your reader won’t be able to tell what your main point is or how all the different ideas relate to your thesis. Also, if you try to cover too many things, you won’t have space to explain them all in depth, which will mean that you’re saying a lot of stuff but only at a very superficial level. It’s better to cover less but go deep into the points you make. Focus on the quality of your claims (depth & detail) not the quantity. In order to STAY FOCUSED, you need to decide ahead of time what each paragraph is going to focus on and then stick to that topic. Even if you come up with a really cool point, if it isn’t related to your paragraph’s topic, don’t include it! Maybe you can add it into the conclusion. The conclusion is a great place to put any extra ideas that you’ve come up with, but the body paragraphs need to stay on topic.
How to Organize a Body Paragraph
Topic Sentence- The very first sentence in your paragraph should introduce the paragraph’s topic. Your reader should be able to look at your first sentence and know what the paragraph is going to discuss.
Introduce Your Evidence- Provide any background information or context that a reader would need to know in order to understand your evidence.
Provide Your Evidence- If you are using a quotation, remember to properly integrate it into your writing. If you are describing an image, remember to use appropriately detailed vocabulary. (A word of caution: Be selective when you quote. Only quote the words or sentences that are directly relevant to your argument. If you quote something, you must analyze all of the words that you quote. Do not clog up your paragraph with long quotations that you don’t have much to say about.)
Analyze Your Evidence- Discuss and interpret the meaning of the evidence, and be sure to point out any aspects of the evidence that a causal reader or viewer might overlook. You can assume your reader has a basic familiarity with your topic, so you don’t need to waste space giving a broad overview of the topic. But you should explain the evidence’s deeper significance–things that most people would overlook if they’re not thinking critically–and, most importantly, you must explain how the evidence relates to your essay’s thesis.
Explain How the Evidence Connects Back to Your Thesis Statement- This last step is the MOST important part of your entire paragraph. You must end the paragraph by explaining exactly how the evidence provided in the paragraph supports your thesis. Please do not assume that your reader will see on their own how the evidence relates to your thesis. You must, must, must connect the dots for your reader! Your last sentence should probably have some of the same words (or synonyms) as your thesis sentence because you need to go back into the idea expressed in the thesis in order to explain how the evidence supports this idea.
Your body paragraphs should be organized in this order: 1) Topic sentence 2) Introduce Evidence 3) Provide Evidence 4) Analyze Evidence 5) Explain How Evidence Supports Thesis. Following this exact order means that any quotations that you use should be placed in the middle of the paragraph. You should never end a body paragraph with a quotation because your goal in any body paragraph is to EXPLAIN how evidence (the quotation) supports your thesis. If you end with a quotation or a piece of evidence, then your reader will have no idea why that piece of evidence matters or how it helps to prove your thesis. That’s why it’s super important to organize your paragraph so that you begin by introducing your topic, provide evidence in the middle, and end by explaining how the evidence backs up your thesis. If you try to follow a different order, you will loose sight of your thesis and your essay will not be as convincing.
Sample Introduction & Body Paragraph
Please read this sample introduction and body paragraph
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. But be aware that it is not meant to represent a complete essay. A complete essay would have an introduction, 2-3 body paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph. I wanted, though, to give a concrete example of what a well-organized introduction and body paragraph should look like.
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