SHORELINE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

HUMANITIES DIVISION

Argumentative Essay Assignment

For your third essay you will be arguing (and analyzing and describing) a viewpoint you hold. Argumentation is the intellectual effort to change a person's view to your own. The author of Just Food is certainly doing this in the third chapter "Frankenfood?: A case for Genetically Modified Crops." In this chapter he is trying to convince people who see genetically-modified crops as "frankenfood"—some kind of potential monster. He acknowledges from the start why people might hold their views, but he then slowly and gently picks apart their concerns using scientific research to change their view. He does the same thing in the next chapter "Meat—The New Caviar: Saying 'No,' or at Least 'Not as Much,' to Eating Land-Based Animals." In this chapter he is obviously looking at an audience that embraces environmentalism but who regularly eats land-based animals (such as lambs, pigs, and cows) and he wants to convince them to stop eating them or to at least eat much less. Again, he starts gently but then to use his own words he, "encourages a serious reduction in meat consumption by laying an evidentiary basis so thick that any serious environmentalist must at least come to terms with the paradox of being a meat-eating environmentalist" (McWilliams 119-120). This is you next task to identify a point of view you hold and then to identify you audience and finally to devise a essay that will change their minds. I still encourage you to work within the theme of food.

 

Here are the requirements:

Your Name
Sean Rody’s English 101
Quarter, Year
Argumentative Essay