Instructions: Your first essay – the critical evaluation essay – is due at the end of week three. In this essay, you will be critically evaluating a classic argument.

Choose one argument from the historic American works listed in the “Supplemental Readings” section of the course lessons. Decide whether this argument is successful or not. If you decide this essay is successful, discuss why. You may use the structure of the argument, the tone, and the various types of support (ethos, pathos, and logos) as proof of the argument’s success. Make sure that your thesis has an introduction that contains a hook and a thesis, body paragraphs that discuss one proof at a time (one paragraph per example), and a conclusion. If you decide that the essay is not successful, then discuss the fallacies that the argument makes. You are still required to have a strong introduction (hook and thesis), body paragraphs that discuss one fallacy at a time, and a conclusion. You may also discuss how the essay is successful with reservations. In this case, point to both the support and the fallacies you have found in the work.

You are not offering personal or historical commentary, or responding to the ideas in the argument; you are evaluating the argument itself, in rhetorical terms.

This paper should be at least 700 words, but no more than 850. The paper should be formatted correctly MLA style and written in third person (do not use the words I, me, us, we, or you).  The essay should also contain citations and a works cited list based on your selected essay in the assigned readings.  Formulate the structured response from your own close reading of the text. Do not use outside sources (open Web) without explicit permission from the instructor.