Teach CUNY Assignments for ENG 101 & 095



Teach CUNY Assignments for ENG 101 & 095

The following assignments are examples of how to teach the budget cuts and related issues in 101 or 095 using resources from the Teach CUNY website. Each assignment pairs a reading(s) with a writing prompt. In most cases, the reading selection and/or writing prompt can be completed either in class or for homework. I think the first assignment will require the least amount of time, while the last one will require the most time. In each case, I recommend allowing students to discuss their writing in small groups (of 3 or 4) before switching to a large group discussion. Feel free to modify the assignments.

Assignment A

The following exercise has students practice basic thesis construction and support using personal narrative.

1. Go over the Fact Sheet with your students.

2. Assign the following writing prompt: Describe one or more ways that the budget cuts affect you.

Assignment B

The following exercise has students practice summary, response, and thesis development. To help students craft their essay, you might consider giving them templates from Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein’s They Say/I Say.

1. Assign the article entitled “New York’s Budget: Some Practical Alternatives” by James Parrott of the Fiscal Policy Institute. The article is about three single-spaced pages, so if you can’t assign it ahead of time, it’s definitely possible for students to read it in class.

2. Assign the following writing prompt: Summarize Parrott’s main points and respond with your own supported point of view.

Assignment C

The following exercise is targeted specifically for 101 students who have already read and discussed Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave.” It has students practice summary, comparison, response, and thesis development.

1. After teaching Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” assign the Fact Sheet, the essay by James Parrott, OR the Power Point on NYS Budget Cuts, Taxes, and Inequality. Alternatively, you may choose to go over the assignment in class.

2. Assign the following writing prompt:

In “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato writes of prisoners in a cave who can only see images on a wall, and concludes, “All in all, then, what people in this situation would take for truth would be nothing more than the shadows of the manufactured objects” (1). Based on the reading, how are New Yorkers like the prisoners in the cave when it comes to beliefs about the budget and/or the budget cuts? Explain what these mistaken beliefs are AND why you think we have them.

Thank you for participating in our Teach CUNY campaign to build awareness and activism around the budget cuts. I encourage you to create your own Teach CUNY assignments using other resources from the website or your own. Please share additional assignments and/or resources by sending them to teachcuny@.

Please remember to invite your students to the Student/Faculty/Staff Summit on Wednesday, April 6 from 2-4pm in Rm. S370 for the next stage in our campaign (event information is on the Fact Sheet, so please give that to your students). Also, please plan to come yourself, and to join us at our follow-up meeting for faculty on Wednesday, April 13 from 4-5pm (room TBA).

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