Characteristics and components of the Open Argument Question
The Open Argument FRQ is an informal essay, a hybrid of personal writing and synthesis. It demands informal but persuasive writing. The scores for the Open FRQ are generally higher than the others. Style, tone, and voice are much more valuable here than they are elsewhere. Unusual forms, surprising perspectives, and quirky tone is more likely to improve a score on this essay than the others, so long as you answer the question of course.
The Open Argument FRQ comes last in the set of 3. OA’s typically come with a short section of material and a longer question. The essay question document will come with three parts:
1. Boilerplate standard language that doesn’t change the way you write. OA’s are variable so the boilerplate is a bit harder to identify than on the other. Usually the boilerplate defines what evidence you should use, and it gives hints to the key idea contained within the material. Usually the question requires “appropriate evidence.” This means any evidence that works and fits the purpose. Popular films, anecdotes of personal experience, trashy novels, things your father says—all of these could be useful evidence, depending upon the question and how you frame and use it. Another common form is to call for evidence from “your reading, observation, and experience.”
The boilerplate will typically refer to the key idea from the material you are to write about. Be sure to extract that key idea—they are seldom difficult to find.
2. Material OA’s are based on a reading, quotation, statement, or other material, usually short, usually provocative, surprising, or opinionated. The material may pose the question but it usually offers an opinion on it. Material in an open FRQ is chosen for idea. Do not confuse Open Arguments with Rhetorical Analysis. Close-read the material for its key idea. Don’t bother with analysis of the piece—that’s wasted time. Fix on the key idea, conceive an opinion about it, shape that opinion to the action statement, choose evidence, and write.
3. Question/action statement OA’s can be surprising and quirky but the action statements are pretty standard: take a stand on this idea. Make sure you fix on an accurate interpretation of the question then take a stand.
Three common catastrophic errors occur in OA’s. Some students do rhetorical analysis on the material. If the action statement doesn’t say ‘analyze’, DON’T ANALYZE. Students sometimes spend too much energy (or all of their energy) interpreting the material rather than presenting their own thinking. You probably do not need to refer to the material at all. The most common error is fence-sitting--dealing with both sides of a question rather than taking a stand.
Some OA’s direct you to evaluate the validity of a statement or to take a stand on whether a proposal would work. Common formats:
• “defend, challenge, or qualify”--ie, agree, disagree, or change. • Take a/explain your/support your position
• Evaluate/explore/examine the validity/truth/usefulness of this proposal/suggestion/argument/assertion.
Compose and submit two Open Argument FRQ’s. Format requirements as in the Synthesis question.
Boilerplate: contain at least one hint to the perceived Big Idea in your material.
Material: choose very carefully. Reduce to the minimum so reading does not require a lot of time. Ensure that the material supports the question and vice-versa. Ensure that the material is accessible for any WHS HS testers.
Question: phrase the action statement very carefully. Ensure that it your question opens several logical avenues for writers to follow. Ensure that the topic is provides ample personal experience for writers to draw upon.
• American essayist and social critic H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) wrote, “The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.” In a well-written essay, examine the extent to which Mencken’s observation applies to contemporary society, supporting your position with appropriate evidence.
• For centuries, prominent thinkers have pondered the relationship between ownership and the development of self
(identity), ultimately asking the question, “What does it mean to own something?”
Plato argues that owning objects is detrimental to a person’s character. Aristotle claims that ownership of tangible goods helps to develop moral character. Twentieth-century philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre proposes that ownership extends beyond objects to include intangible things as well. In Sartre’s view, becoming proficient in some skill and knowing something thoroughly means that we “own” it.
Think about the differing views of ownership. Then write an essay in which you explain your position on the
relationship between ownership and sense of self. Use appropriate evidence from your reading, experience, or
observations to support your argument.
• Consider the distinct perspectives expressed in the following statements.
If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible.
William Lyon Phelps, American educator, journalist, and professor (1865–1943)
I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.
Bertrand Russell, British author, mathematician, and philosopher (1872–1970)
In a well-organized essay, take a position on the relationship between certainty and doubt. Support your argument with appropriate evidence and examples.
• The following passage is from Rights of Man, a book written by the pamphleteer Thomas Paine in 1791. Born in England, Paine was an intellectual, a revolutionary, and a supporter of American independence from England.
Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay that examines the extent to which Paine’s characterization of America holds true today. Use appropriate evidence to support your argument.
If there is a country in the world, where concord, according to common calculation, would be least expected, it is America. Made up, as it is, of people from different nations, accustomed to different forms and habits of government, speaking different languages, and more different in their modes of worship, it would appear that the union of such a people was impracticable; but by the simple operation of constructing government on the principles of society and the rights of man, every difficulty retires, and all the parts are brought into cordial unison.
There, the poor are not oppressed, the rich are not privileged. . . . Their taxes are few, because their government is just; and as there is nothing to render them wretched, there is nothing to engender riots and tumults.
• A weekly feature of The New York Times Magazine is a column by Randy Cohen called “The Ethicist,” in which people raise ethical questions to which Cohen provides answers. The question below is from the column that appeared on April 4, 2003.
At my high school, various clubs and organizations sponsor charity drives, asking students to bring in money, food, and clothing. Some teachers offer bonus points on tests and final averages as incentives to participate. Some parents believe that this
sends a morally wrong message, undermining the value of charity as a selfless act. Is the exchange of donations for grades O.K.?
The practice of offering incentives for charitable acts is widespread, from school projects to fund drives by organizations such as public television stations, to federal income tax deductions for contributions to charities. In a well-written essay, develop a position on the ethics of offering incentives for charitable acts. Support your position with evidence from your reading, observation, and/or experience.
• In 2001 The American Scholar published an excerpt from a talk given by English author Margaret Drabble. In her talk, Drabble claimed that “Our desire to conform is greater than our respect for objective facts.” Using appropriate evidence from your reading,
observation, and/or experience, write a carefully reasoned essay defending, challenging, or qualifying Drabble’s assertion about conformity.
Contemporary society is apparently terrified. That is because terror is profitable. Sure, we call it freedom—freedom is a term that is always in vogue—but it is really a balance between productive terror and real terror, a balance like you find in a nuclear reactor: hot enough to boil water and create electricity, but not so hot that control is lost.
How else to explain recent trends in the militarization of police forces? That local beat cop, checking doors and chatting with residents on the stoop? He’s patrolling in a black SUV with tinted windows and black-rimmed wheels. Officer Friendly, showing up at schools and stopping to help somebody change a tire? He’s busy running a dog through classrooms at the high school, checking backpacks and pockets and the Fourth Amendment for actionable contraband. If you’re a community on the margins—black, poor, or Hispanic—cops are unabashedly enemies now. In fact, during recent civil unrest in Ferguson, MO over the shooting death of an unarmed black man by police, that’s what police briefings called citizens on the street: the enemy. Police have bigger guns, heavier cars, meaner dogs, and a clear mandate to use them.
That fear does not come from real threats to the public welfare. Crime is down, in every category, in every degree and angle. Drug offenses—which packed our prisons for the past forty years—are being reexamined in ways that would astonish the war-on-drugs/industrial complex that is federal law enforcement. Crack, which was portrayed by law enforcement as a Superdrug that crushed poor neighborhoods and destroyed poor lives, turned out to be chemically identical to the regular old Clark Kent cocaine that was a natural fixture of wealthy and white American stockbrokers and lawyers. Those lawyers and stockbrokers stayed safe even when they were unpeeling their lives with cocaine, because poor black men with crack convictions went to prison nearly twice as often and over twice as long as white people with identical quantities of blow in the glove boxes of their Audis. Either those people wanted to be free, or they just wanted to be average; Mencken, a Baltimorean, would have been shocked but amused by David Simon’s TV masterpiece The Wire, in which neither freedom nor safety were available to the poor of Baltimore, though plenty of money was.
So what are these hero-cops with their tanks and drones and flash-bang grenades keeping us safe from? Certainly not illegal immigrants, though the government of the State of Arizona has tried mightily to enlist them in the pathetic process of patrolling the desert borders for suspicious persons who can’t positively prove their citizenship on the street. Certainly not foreign terrorists, though the FBI does a brisk business turning lonely crackpots into Osama bin Ladens by filling their ears with seductive plots then busting them when they express their willingness to blow up LAX with a fake bomb thoughtfully provided by the FBI. Certainly not our own homegrown crackpots, those Sovereign Citizens or White Supremacists or just plain crazies who feel inclined to shoot up a movie theatre or a parade to prove a point visible only to themselves. Those