4. Our theme, driven by Gawande’s text, is health and healthcare. That means you will need to decide on a
problem related to health or healthcare by the end of Week 2 that is personally interesting to you and that you
wish to research and write about during the next 10 weeks. If you have time this week, you might read about what
is going in health or healthcare, or think about a specific issue you are curious to know more about. You might think
about your own life, your family, your major, your career interests, or your other interests and hobbies (sports,
video games, food/nutrition, the environment, volunteer work with seniors or children, etc.) to come up with a
problem you’d like to research and write about this quarter.
The more specific and narrow the topic, the better. It’s more interesting to write about a very narrow topic,
broadening out as needed to provide context, rather than writing generally about a very broad topic. For example,
“cancer” is too broad a topic to work effectively for our essays. But something like, “How does the lack of early
access to cancer diagnosis and treatment affect minority and low-income groups in Los Angeles?” is a very
workable topic. That’s because it’s specific about the type of problem (not just a disease) and also provides a
roadmap for what the argument is going to be about. You may not get to this level of specificity right away, but
hopefully you will by the end of Week 2 after some initial research. You can get help from me, your cohort, or the
Writing Center as needed.
And keep in mind that your chosen problem doesn’t have to affect the whole world! Again, think of limiting your
scope as much as possible. You might think about a health problem that has specifically affected you, a friend, or a
family member. Or a problem you read about that affects a small subset of the population that you care about, such
as premature infants in rural areas, elderly men in nursing homes, families living in South Los Angeles (or North
Orange County), UCI students living on campus, UCI international students, or incarcerated pregnant women, just
for example.
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