CIE-200.

DD
Common Intellectual Experience 2
Spring 2010 Instructor: Nathan Rein
MWF 11-12 Office hours: M 1:30-3pm, Tue 10 am-12 noon, and by appt.
Fetterolf 110 Olin 211, x. 2571, nrein@ursinus.edu

First paper assignment: Religion and rights in Martin Luther King

For this paper, reread King's "I Have a Dream" speech (from the CIE 2 reader) and
answer the question: What, in your view, is the importance of the religious
language, ideas, and imagery that appear throughout the speech? There is more
than one way to think about this question. For example, you might ask: is the
religious content central to the argument King is making, or is it simply there to
make his political point more persuasive? Or you might ask: does King present his
vision (his "dream") of equality and justice as a specifically Christian (or specifically
religious) vision, or not? Or you might take another approach: does the audience
have to accept King's religious beliefs in order to accept his ultimate purposes, and
why or why not? The question is intentionally open-ended this way. Choose an
approach that seems interesting and doable to you, present your reasoning, and
draw on specific passages of King's text to make your points. Your paper should
have a strong thesis statement that gives the reader a sense of where your argument
is going; it should explain your views clearly and give justifications for them based
on the text.

The first draft will be due to me via email on Friday, Feb. 5 at 5 p.m. It should be a
minimum of 1200 words in length; include a word count in the paper's header.

Some guidelines:
• Submit it via email to me (nrein at ursinus dot edu).
• Save it with a filename like this:
[your last name] - King paper, draft 1 - [date you sent the email].doc.
In other words, my paper would be saved as
Rein - King paper, draft 1 - 2-5-2010.doc
Sorry if this seems anal, but it really helps me keep track of things.
• I will return it with comments within a week, and you will then have another
week to hand in a revised version for a grade.
• Grading criteria: strength and clarity of your thesis; effective use of the
primary text (King's speech); coherence of your overall argument; quality of
your writing (in other words, no grammar or spelling errors; and your
writing should be clear and understandable)