Essay Assignment Two

Due Date:

Peer Review:
Length: 4 double-spaced pages; extra credit: 5 double-spaced pages

Assignment Goal: Create a thesis-driven essay that compares and contrasts the motivations, triggers, and urban circumstances behind the riot that takes place in The Destruction of Gotham and one of the Harlem riots (35, 43, 64).

Assignment Description: The thesis statement to the paper should answer the question: what were the similarities and differences between two different riots (one from the novel, one from Harlem)? The statement itself should address the overall relationship between the riots; it should address what made the two riots unique; it should address what the riots have in common.

Extra Credit: Consider two Harlem riots in your paper. Add an extra page of development to the essay by treating the second riot. The additional claim you make about this riot will be expressed in your thesis and as a supporting paragraph (or two) equal to one page of the paper.

First, return to The Destruction of Gotham and re-read the key passages and your notes (I've added board notes from class discussion). Find at least two passages that speak to the conditions, trigger, and aftermath that define the riot in the novel. Be sure you can explain the relevance of the riot in relation to the novel's overall plot and main characters. For example, you might pick out how one of the novel's characters helps us understand the riot, and use textual evidence to support that claim. That might help construct one of the major claims you'll make about the novel and/or the riot in the novel. In general, please be sure to pay special attention to the pages in the novel that directly try and explain the context and trigger for the violence. 

Now consider the evidence we have related to the Harlem riots of 1935, 1943, 1964. What were the contexts and triggers that produced the riot? What was the aftermath? How do these circumstances and triggers relate to the ones you selected in The Destruction of Gotham? The key text for the 1935 riot is the subcommittee report we read. They key text from the 1943 riot is the selection from the Mayor's biography.

Your thesis will very likely contain a set of claim that you see as relevant to understanding the riots together and also separately. You might argue in your thesis about how the examples you've found connect together, but also how they might be unique expressions, of riot culture. In this thesis, for example, urban blight/housing conditions might be your key term. You would then use textual evidence and critical thinking in support paragraphs to elaborate on, or complicate, your argument.

What kind of phrase is "housing conditions" anyway? Pretty vague!