Preparation Instructions for Final Exam (100W)
The exam will look like this:

Part 1:  Rhetorical Analysis
Suggested Time:  30 minutes
Points:  35
 

Using your one-page list of rhetorical terms, evaluate the attached piece of writing.  Identify its strengths and weaknesses, and use them to support your analysis.  Do not merely list the terms; instead, use the terms as a way of argumentatively engaging with the essay.  When are you persuaded?  Any why?  When aren't you persuaded?  And why?

Part II: Essay
 Suggested Time For Writing: One Hour
Points: 65



Choose one (1) of the topics below to answer in essay form. Use the questions within each topic as suggestions to guide your thinking -- that is, while it is not necessary to address each and every suggestion, you'll want to focus on some of the issues they raise. A suggestion: write out your outline for your essay before you begin. Don't forget to support your argument.

 You have from now until the exam to choose and prepare an answer to any of the essay questions below.  When you receive your final exam, three of these four questions will be on it.  At that time you will choose one of the topics to answer in essay form.

    Use the questions within each topic as suggestions to guide your thinking -- that is, while it is not necessary to address each and every suggestion, you'll want to focus on some of the issues they raise.  A suggestion:  write out your outline for your essay before you begin.  Don't forget to support your argument.

    When you take the exam, you will complete your written essay response during the allotted time period (1 hour).  Remember, you may consult your texts and notes and make your own notes in preparing your answer(s) only.  You may not have texts or notes with you when you take the actual exam.

1.  Examine the curriculum of the courses you are taking this semester.  To what extent do they reflect the "diverse new world" that Cornel West describes?  To what extent do they reflect the "openness" that Allan Bloom advocates?  Begin your response by explaining what "diverse new world" and openness" mean for each author.  Next, compare your course curriculum to these contrasting visions.  Do your courses resemble either version of education?  Which ones?  Do all of your courses follow the same version?  Which model should your education conform to?  Drawing upon Wet, Bloom, and -- as necessary -- Lawrence Levine and James Loewen, do one of the following:  (1) Argue for what changes should be made in your curriculum, or (2) explain your reasons for maintaining the courses as they are currently taught, or (3) some combination of positions 1 and 2.

2.  Analyze race relations on Vanderbilt's campus by using any of the essays we've read on race or prejudice as well as your own experiences.  How can we account for the current dynamics between races?  Do any of the authors we've read -- like Shelby Steele, Jonathan Alter, and Charles R. Lawrence III -- provide a solution to our problems?

3.  In Washington, a team of independent counsels have just discovered that both Democrats and Republicans have something to hide about the 1996 elections:  neither Clinton nor Dole won.  Apparently afraid that a renegade write-in candidate might upset the parties' political duopoly, Democratic and Republican party leaders ordered subordinates to "lose" the written votes.  Due to staffing cutbacks, the person responsible for making the votes disappear was fired before starting the job.  The independent counsels have found and counted the votes:  as the most popular write-in candidate, you have been elected President of the United States.  Clinton and Gingrich (both of who were implicated in the cover-up) will be resigning on April 24.  You must deliver your Inaugural Address on  April 25th.  What will you say to the American People?  Recall our evaluation of the merits and demerits of Clinton's Inaugural Address, and write a rhetorically persuasive Inaugural Address in which you articulate your visions for America.

4.  Gregory Mantsios's essay illustrates how "rewards and opportunities" are linked to socio-economic class.  Given that a capitalist system assumes that some are going to have less than others, take a position on the social consequences of free-market capitalism in the U.S.  As you develop your argument, consider the following questions:  Are the wealthy in the United States exploiting or oppressing those less fortunate?  If they are, what should we do about that oppression? Or, are the disparities in wealth a necessary -- even beneficial -- by-product of a free society?