Hello all. Now that your second writing assignment is done (I will be grading them soon!), I have your next reading assignment ready to go. These essays will be the final two that we read from I Wear the Black Hat, so please buy the next book, But What if We’re Wrong, soon. These essays will lead to your next grade, which will be worth part of the shorter essay grade. Please read:

Electric Funeral
Crime and Punishment (or Lack Thereof)

I would also encourage you, if you have time, to watch one or more of the following TV shows:

Breaking Bad (on Netflix)
The Sopranos (on HBOGO)
Mad Men (you can rent on Amazon)
Better Call Saul (on Netflix)
How to Get Away with Murder (on Netflix)

This will help you for your next assignment (especially Breaking Bad–it is, without question, the greatest TV show in the history of television, FACT).

Happy reading! I’ll be back with you soon for your next writing assignment.

Writing Assignment 3!

Hey everyone. So I have your next writing assignment ready to go. Read this one carefully because it comes in parts (which by now I assume you’re used to).

Okay, so in the previous essays you have been reading about antiheroes and why we, the American consumer, have become increasingly sympathetic to these antiheroes for a variety of reasons. Antihero essentially meaning: someone who would, under normal circumstances (meaning NOT on TV, or in film, music, media, etc) be considered a vile, objectively evil human being (if you’ve seen Breaking Bad, you know what I’m talking about–Walter White the EPITOME of antihero on TV). There are TONS EVERYWHERE, in any and all forms of media. I would like you to do a bit of research into the word antihero and how it has come to be a ubiquitous trope in media. And for your assignment I would like you to do the following. (By the way, this grade will be a small essay grade, averaged together with all the small essays to equal 25% of your overall semester grade). Please make a list of 50 antiheroes. You can list just about anyone who fits the description (but you CANNOT use real people you know, like a cousin or someone that I have no idea who he/she is). You can, of course, use real people (not just characters)–Kanye is an example, Taylor Swift is another. But you can and should also use characters from shows, movies, music, cartoons, video games. So, make that list of 50.

Then, choose ten of those 50. For these ten I want you to write a half-page (single-spaced) explanation of what makes your antihero antiheroic. In this part you need to be VERY specific, not general in any sense. So there will be two parts to this essay, turned in as one document of course. A list of 50 antiheroes, then ten paragraphs (equaling five total pages, since each antihero will be given half a page) worth of explanation.

These will be due Saturday, October 14 by 11:59 p.m. No late papers accepted. Good luck!