18 Oct Effects on Players’ Beliefs, Attitudes, and Behaviors about Poverty

o    Link (library article): Experiencing Poverty in an Online Simulation: Effects on Players’ Beliefs, Attitudes, and Behaviors about Poverty (Links to an external site.)

Optional Resources

Review the following writing resources:

·         Link (multimedia presentation): Citing References in Text (Links to an external site.)

Initial Post Instructions

This discussion has two parts.

1.    Read the following in your textbook: “Get Fit with Wii” by Olivia Covey (pp. 213-214). In complete sentences and with depth and detail, answer the following:

o    Is Covey utilizing the pattern “effects of a major cause” or “causes for a major effect”? Explain your answer.

o    List at least two of the most effective sentences in Covey’s article, offering a full discussion of how and why they were effective for you as a reader of a cause and effect analysis.

o    Identify and explain at least one lesson you learned from reading this article that will help you with your own cause and effect essay.

2.    Next, begin work on your own cause and effect essay by choosing a topic. Your topic must be very narrow, must address a very specific set of subpoints (depending on how you choose to organize, your subpoints may be causes or effects, but never a mix – we must always construct a cause and effect analysis with a major cause and several effects or a major effect and several causes). Your topic and subpoints must also have a powerful and clear purpose.

Here are the writing prompts from which you may choose for your cause/effect essay. Remember that these prompts are broad; it is up to you to make your topic very, very specific, granular, and detailed. Also, keep in mind that this is the topic for your essay, which you will write in Weeks 5 and 6, through planning and finalizing.

·         Consider a very specific recent (within the past few months) local, national, or global event. Keeping in mind that no research is allowed, write a detailed cause/effect essay that examines either a single specific main cause for the event and several specific effects of the event, or that examines a specific main effect resulting from the event and several specific causes for the event.

·         Consider a single, specific area of your life in which you have changed or grown in the past year. Keeping in mind that no research is allowed, write a detailed cause/effect essay that examines either a specific main cause for your specific change and several specific effects resulting from that specific change, or an essay that examines a specific main effect of that change and several specific causes that led to that particular change.

·         Consider a single individual who has entered your life in the past year and who has become a highly significant part of your life. Keeping in mind that no research is allowed, write a detailed cause/effect essay that examines either a specific main cause for why this person coming into your life was highly significant and several specific effects resulting from that person coming into your life, or an essay that examines a specific main significant effect resulting from that person coming into your life and several specific causes that led to that particular significant effect.

After spending some time reading, thinking about, and brainstorming over these prompts, please complete the following:

1.    Briefly list 3 possible specific topics for your cause and effect essay. Just be sure that you are thinking in terms of one or the other: Either choose one cause and develop several effects or choose one effect and identify several causes.

2.    Which topic do you feel most passionate about?

3.    What will your audience gain by reading this essay?

4.    Once you choose your topic, brainstorm a list of 3 very specific subtopics. Be as narrow, specific, and granular as possible right now. Moving into Week 6, as you compose your essay, your 3 subpoints may lend themselves to physical description – colors, shapes, sounds, smells – or more to listing qualities of a person or place and/or using some of the comparison and contrast and process methods you have learned.