Letter to the Editor Assignment

Letter due by Friday, March 24, 2000. 

Your task is to write a letter to the editor explaining your thoughts concerning a recent article or event relevant to issues in the community. The two most promising issues are the "teaching morality" article from the Eastside Journal, and the article published in Wired magazine written by Bill Joy. Before you can decide, you must read some background on the two issues; a good starting place is the attached page from a Seattle Times article. In addition, all students must read the entire Joy article; it is published on the Wired web site at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html . Other articles can be found at this link to the Seattle Times archive on the issue http://archives.seattletimes.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/search?source=search&skip=0&maxReturn=10&section=*&period=weekly&query=Wired&searchType=date

Your letter must be correctly formatted, thoughtful, and opinionated.

Use business letter format in either your daily planner or in Writer's Inc.

In your letter you must:

    1. Suggest a course of action
    2. Identify your own underlying assumptions
    3. Explain and evaluate counter arguments
    4. Detail the elements of your suggested course of action
    5. Support your opinion with "expert" testimony

Experts include:

Current political figures,

business leaders,

philosophers,

poets,

artists,

musicians

and religious leaders.

Your letter will be evaluated by the following criteria:

Format followed

15 pts

Content 1-4 above

30 pts

Support from experts

15 pts

Letters are due BOC on Friday.

Letters must be e-mailed to either letterstoeditor@eastsidejournal.com or opinion@seattletimes.com ; a copy should be cc'd to me at bramand@issaquah.wednet.edu . Tips for writing successful letters are posted on the Seattle Times web site at http://www.seattletimes.com/news/editorial/explainer/letters.html .

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