You have two distinct choices here from areas of “Ways of Reading” that we have considered. Let’s offer the option for the most recent readings first: 

Option 1

For this assignment, I want you to approach your own educational process–one you are still undergoing–from the critical perspectives offered by Rodriguez and by Castro, after you’ve completed reading Castro’s essays. You are not telling the story of twelve plus years of education in the manner than Rodriguez is telling his life story, but you are evaluating critically the education you have received to this point, more closely in the way Castro does. Note that Castro’s essays are shorter than Rodriguez’s and she uses the story of her education to discuss many issues—not merely education. You should feel free to do the same. Clearly, both writers from this segment of our class contend that education changes and conditions us; now you will use their theories to examine your experience.

In order to do this effectively, you will have to understand the Rodriguez and Castro essays well. PLEASE NOTE: YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO USE BOTH WRITERS’ ESSAYS. I want you to quote liberally from the essays to help you make your points. Try to approach your writing as if you were testing or applying the principles that one or both of the writers are putting down.A successful essay will be one that examines specific episodes of your educational process through the texts we have read. Again, I’m not interested in reading a bunch of extended, general narratives about education, but rather detailed, highlighted essays that approach the issue of how you (and we) are and have been educated. (Again, both Castro and Rodriguez recount individual episodes from their lives, but only to discuss what it taught them about education and the worlds they inhabited.) Be willing to be critical of the institution of education, just as we have been critical all semester long of “institutions” we too often take for granted, whether those were institutions of art, gender, race, culture, government, or media. If Castro reinforces or illuminates perceptions you have had about education all along, then write about these. If Rodriguez’s claims about how education must be initially “demeaning” or humbling seem to reflect more accurately your school experience, then use Rodriguez.. The key here is to shape your essay around your own critical conclusions, regardless of whether or not they support or contradict Castro or Rodriguez, or whether they fall somewhere in between. 

Again, when and if you call on your own experience here as an example, you will need to tell us about the type of school you attend or attended, whom the teachers were, the kinds of students in the class, the subject being taught, and so on until you cover the essentials of the experience that must be communicated to your reader for real meaning to take place. And remember, crucially, you’re reading your experience in terms of Castro or Rodriguez. Their texts must bind yours.

Option 2

This assignment comes directly from your textbook, Ways of Reading:

Write a summary of “The Gene Hackers” that provides an account of CRISPR technology, its history and its future.

Let’s imagine that it is your job to explain Specter’s essay to someone who has not yet had the chance to read it, someone who is smart and informed but who doesn’t yet know what the essay says or why it is interesting (or important)—or, for that matter, someone who doesn’t yet know why it is wrongheaded or not worth reading.

With paraphrase and some direct quotation (including block form), write an essay to provide your sense of what the essay says and why it might be of consequence to others, in particular to those of your generation. Be sure to take time to explain and interpret the key passages and details. And be sure to take time, most likely at the end, to speak for yourself, to expand what Specter says to your interests, experiences, stories, and concerns. 

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This is the last of the three required essays before your research papers, and thus probably the most important. Approach this with some intellectual rigor and stylistic flair, if you can. Minimum word requirement is 1000 words.

I will attach the book “Way’s of Reading” the table of contents is a little off with the page numbers. You might have to search (CTRL F) the titles of the passages to find it.