Final Examination (09S)

CRTW 201

Dr. Fike

2:00 section:  Monday, May 4th, 3:00 p.m.

5:00 section:  Monday, May 4th, 6:30 p.m.

Directions:  Write your essay in blue or black ink on one side of the page in your large bluebook.  Underline your thesis and the elements.  Include section headings (introduction, background, arguments, objections, replies, conclusion).  Be sure to leave one-inch left and right margins.  I will provide scratch paper if you need it.  Do NOT use notebook paper or write in pencil. Use blue or black ballpoint pen. Write only on one side of each page.  You may not use books or notes of any kind.  Spend some time prewriting before the exam time.  Your goal is to produce a 1,000-word essay (the equivalent of 4 printed, double-spaced pages on a word processor, probably about 6 pages in a large bluebook).  Be sure that you describe your focused topic and apply the elements to it in the background section and that you write a classical argument about a controversial thesis containing that focused topic (a specific example from your own experience). 

Here is the question:

The purpose of CRTW 201 is to provide you with tools with which to approach your other courses as well as situations in your nonacademic life.  We have focused (especially in Paper Three) on critical thinking's academic applications, but this essay exam gives you an opportunity to apply the elements to an important issue from your own life.  Select as your focused topic something important and controversial from your own personal situation.  An ideal issue would be a major decision that you are facing or have made (but do not write about your decision to come to Winthrop University or to major in a particular discipline:  the subject of your essay must be nonacademic).  If nothing appropriate springs to mind, then this exam will provide an opportunity for you to think through something that you have always taken for granted (for example, a religious belief, a moral conviction, the way you handled a difficult situation, a conflict you had with someone, etc.).  As always, the thesis you should write and underline should include and be about the focused topic, and it should take the form "Although . . . , I will argue that . . . because. . . ." 

Do not forget:

• Write in a bluebook.
• Underline your thesis and the names of the elements.
• Include section headings.
• Use blue or black ballpoint pen.
• Write only on one side of the page.