WRITING ASSIGNMENT

1. Carefully read and consider all ideas in Malcolm X’s “A Homemade Education” and

Kaufman’s “Who’s Educated? Who Knows?”

2. Write an essay in response to ONE of the following questions:

What does it mean to be an educated person? Give specific examples.

What is the value of education and how does a person become “educated”?

Malcolm X obtained his “prison education” in the 1960s. Kaufman wrote about

education in the 1990s. How has education and its value changed from these

past times to present day?

Must one have and value education in order to be “happy” and/or influential in

modern American society?

3. Title the essay.

4. Type the essay. Essay should be 1 to 2 pages, double-spaced. Use Times New

Roman, 12-point font.

4. Use MLA format for the first page of the essay according to the example below.

Your name

Mrs. Ferguson, First Period {Type this on the left side of the paper}

English II

25 August 2008 {Notice inverted date order}

Title

5. In your essay, be sure to include at least one properly cited quote from either

Malcolm X or Kaufman’s article.

Examples:

Example number one:

“………..” (Malcolm X “A Homemade Education”).

Example number two:

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein says, “I still need to learn more,

too.” (qtd. in Kaufman’s “Who’s Educated? Who Knows?”).

6. Show some form of prewriting (mapping/clustering, brain storming, T-square, Venn

diagram). Write a thesis sentence before starting the rough draft. Begin the rough draft on the same page as the prewriting. Staple work together in this order:

1. This direction sheet and rubric

2. Essay

3. Prewriting with thesis statement

4. Rough draft

5. Both non-fiction articles

Education Essay Rubric

Malcolm X article shows evidence of all

four close reading steps: highlighting,

Voc words circled or underlined & defined,

comments/responses in margin, 1-2 sentence

summary at end of article ______/10

Kaufman article shows evidence of all

four close reading steps ______/10

Any form of prewriting, separate thesis ______/5

sentence

Rough draft ______/5

Evidence when skimming rough draft and

carefully reading final copy that revision

or editing has taken place ______/5

Final essay ______/25

Total Final Score ______/60

AP Grading Scale Equivalents for grading essay:

9 24-25

8 22-23

7 20-21

6 18-19

5 15-17

4 13-14

3 12

2 11

1 9-10