Choosing a News Article

This article may address any Women’s Studies topic, but should be something that you find interesting enough to look into in more detail and discuss thoroughly.

• She Ran from the Cut, and Helped Thousands of Other Girls Escape Too [female genital mutilation] (New York Times) [January 2018]

Structure:

You may structure this assignment either as a traditional essay, starting with a thesis statement and developing your discussion of the article around specific points of interest for Women’s Studies, or you may structure this essay as a lesson plan for a Women’s Studies class you would teach with the article you chose as a central component of the lesson. If you choose the lesson plan format, you still need to write out your “lecture” (discussion of the article) in complete sentences.

Whichever structure you choose, the essay should contain the following in addition to your primary claims about why the article would be useful to study in a Women’s Studies class:

• Direct quotes from the news article to support your understanding of it. Consider which quotes you would be likely to point out to students and why.
• Direct quotes from the course materials (course modules, articles, PowerPoints, other documents) to support your claims about why the article would be of interest to a Women’s Studies class. Consider which passages from the textbook you would point out in class for students to read and discuss alongside the article.
• Detailed discussion about how the information in the article and the material from the textbook fit together – this is where you explain why this article would enhance the course and how you would present it.
• This assignment does not require additional outside research. You should be able to write your paper using the news article you have chosen and materials assigned for this course. If you choose to do some additional research, be sure that your essay still focuses on your chosen news article and makes substantial use of the course materials.