Quite honestly, I did not expect much from this course because I took AP English Language and Composition in high school and I figured this class would be a rehash of that material. While I wasn't completely wrong (cue talking about logos, ethos, and pathos for the umpteenth time), 281 certainly dove more in-depth into traditional writing topics, and the students were asked to discuss important issues more than they would in a lower-level class. Miss Daniel put an especially unique spin on the course by focusing the second half of the quarter on our careers. We investigated the roles we'd have to take in our respective future job markets, then wrote on our findings and made educational documents to help individuals in our field. It was a focus I would not have expected in an English, but it made the course material very applicable to everyone involved.
Below is the first major paper we wrote for the class. The prompt was to write a persuasive essay on a contemporary issue that could relate to arguments in Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail or Martin Marty's When Faiths Collide. I chose to write about abortion legislation, citing MLK Jr. directly in the middle of the essay because of how true his words ring even now about many divisive issues.