Explain your ideas adequately. Simply listing points is not enough. They must be explained. Include material from at least one reading in each body paragraph.

Anu Partanen “Finland’s School Success” & Jonathan Kozol ““Fremont High School”

Assignment

Draft, revise, and edit your text to produce a well-organized essay of at least 600 words and not more than 800. Your essay should be a synthesis of the following readings:

• Anu Partanen “Finland’s School Success” (pg. 999-1006)
• Jonathan Kozol ““Fremont High School” (pg. 770-778)

Purpose

The point of a synthesis is to infer significant relationships between the information and ideas in various sources and communicate those relationships clearly. Your essay should go beyond summary and critique to argue a point about an important or significant relationship between sources. Your thesis should contain your own original idea based on your sources.

Skills

The purpose of this assignment is to help you practice the following skills that are essential to this course, first year composition, and most importantly, writing and researching across the curriculum: critical reading, critical thinking, evaluation, synthesis, and analysis.

Knowledge

This assignment will help you become familiar with synthesizing sources. A synthesis requires you to infer significant relationships between multiple sources and make an argument based on those relationships.

Task

Your essay should contain the following: an introduction, at least four body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Focus on developing each body paragraph with plenty of details and explanations to make your argument convincing. Four body paragraphs means that you need to make four points supporting your thesis. Use MLA format for the essay.

Criteria for Success:
• Begin your essay with appropriate background information about the source essays. Your introduction should draw your readers in and lead them smoothly to your thesis statement. In the introduction, mention the authors by full name and state the titles of the readings. Include a very brief (1-2 sentences) summary of each reading. Your thesis should clearly state an arguable claim based on connections between the two readings.

• Explain your ideas adequately. Simply listing points is not enough. They must be explained. Include material from at least one reading in each body paragraph.

• Organize your essay. Well-developed, unified, coherent body paragraphs should directly support your thesis. Each body paragraph should begin with a topic sentence.

• Check for good grammar and clear sentences. Proofread carefully.