This assignment, developed as a final project for a hybrid and online teaching seminar, could work well for a hybrid course. The prospectus and research could be completed in person, with the drafting and research completed asynchronously.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
—George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905
Santayana’s quote was written on a wooden sign above Jim Jones’s chair in the pavilion at Jonestown. On November 18, 1978, the quote must have seemed like the ultimate irony to the Guyanese officials who discovered 918 bodies at Jonestown. The bodies were diverse in race, gender, and age. Some were children. Many were women and people of color. Some were highly educated and accomplished. All were American.
The People’s Temple, the American organization that moved to Guyana and built Jonestown, was a great idea gone horribly wrong. Its members believed they were remembering the past and changing the future. They believed in racial and social justice and equality. They wanted a community that cared for and recognized the dignity of everyone, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, age, and ability, where everyone loved their neighbors. They tried to build that community with their own hands, to live in harmony with nature, to grow their own food and share their abundance.
Their leader, Jim Jones, and his innermost circle of supporters, believed in other things. We don’t know exactly what Jones believed, or how exactly mental illness and substance abuse factored into his beliefs, but we do know that he believed in his rights to power and to exploit other people. And we know he understood his followers’ beliefs and hopes, and used these to manipulate and control them all the way to their deaths.
How could this happen? Jonestown is a significant example among scams, cults, and frauds that have damaged and destroyed people’s lives, but there are many more.
This assignment asks you to choose a person, group, or organization that either (1) has been proven to be a scam, cult or fraud, (2) has a reputation as a scam, cult, or fraud, or (3) you believe is a scam, cult or fraud.
Then, you’ll choose texts and media artifacts related to your topic, analyze their rhetoric, and research questions of, “how did this happen?” and “what does this case say about how people decide what they believe is true?” Your answer to those questions will become your research paper’s thesis statement. You’ll then write a 7-8 page research paper that uses primary and secondary sources to support your thesis.
Categories and examples of topics:
- Financial/business/corporate (scams, pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes). Some examples are Sam Bankman-Fried and SBX, Fyre Festival, Bernie Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes, and LulaRoe.
- Religious (cults, false gurus). Some examples are Jim Jones and Jonestown, Scientology, Heaven’s Gate, the Branch Dividians, and Aum Shinrikyo.
- Lifestyle (self-help gurus, personal finance gurus, motivational speakers, self-improvement programs, influencers). NXIVM and James Arthur Ray are two clearly problematic examples. You could also opt to research one of the many motivational speakers or self-help franchises that are extremely successful and popular, but whose advice is questionable for any number of reasons, or who have done things that seem to exploit their followers or are otherwise ethically sketchy.
- Political or National (popular regimes that became oppressive, corrupt and/or murdered a lot of people). A few examples are Nazism, Stalinism, and the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution. Many more recent and controversial examples abound.
Paper specs:
Minimum of 6 sources
7-8 double-spaced pages
30% of course grade
Timeline:
For all due dates, see the Assignment Schedule for Unit 3 on Blackboard.
Research-Based Essay Assignment: Grading Rubric
| Prospectus Worksheet** If you change your topic after turning in the prospectus worksheet, you must turn in a new prospectus worksheet for your new topic in order to get this credit. | __/5 |
| Rough Draft **You cannot change your topic after turning in your rough draft. | __/10 |
| Reverse Outline | __/5 |
| Annotated Bibliography | __/10 |
| Writer’s Letter and Revision List | __/5 |
| Thesis: Posit a thesis statement that takes a position on a controversial issue. Your thesis should be controversial enough to warrant counterarguments that you can raise and rebut. Your thesis should be supportable with sub-arguments and researched evidence. Your thesis should be narrow enough that you can cover it in some depth in your paper. | __/10 |
| Sub-arguments: Articulate at least three sub-arguments that support your thesis and support your sub-arguments with credible researched evidence. | __/10 |
| Counter-arguments and Answers: Articulate at least two counter-arguments to your thesis and/or sub-arguments and offer your own answers to those counter-arguments, using credible researched evidence to support your answers. | __/10 |
| Orientation, Organization, and Logical Flow: Use transitional phrases and idea-focused topic sentences to continually ensure your reader remains oriented and can follow your logic throughout the essay. Put your strongest arguments first. Arrange your arguments in an order that is logical to the reader. Ensure your arguments and evidence are relevant to your thesis, and avoid repetitiveness. | __/10 |
| Effective Use of Credible Sources: Incorporate multiple perspectives in your writing by summarizing, interpreting, critiquing, and synthesizing the arguments of others. Use at least 6 sources credible to your audience. | __/10 |
| Citations: Ethically acknowledge the work of others when used in your own writing, using a citation style appropriate to your audience and purpose.***(Note that plagiarism will result in an F on the paper and the course as well as disciplinary action. This 5% criteria concerns your methods and techniques of attribution, not whether you do it when necessary, the failure of which constitutes plagiarism.) | __/5 |
| Clarity and Style: Is the essay’s language clear? Are words used correctly and economically, avoiding cluttered phrasing? Are sentences complete and paragraphing choices logical? Does it use correct grammar, syntax, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization? Has the essay been proofread? Has it been purged of clutter? | __/5 |
| Assignment and Genre: Does the essay satisfy the assignment? Is it a researched argument essay? Does it follow the genre conventions of college research papers? | __/5 |