Assignment Objectives • In a short paragraph, summarize the most important points Ashley Merryman makes in her New York Times Opinion piece, “Forget Trophies, Let Kids Know It’s O.K. to Lose.” • In a second paragraph, evaluate one of the critiques of participation-based trophies by analyzing your own experience as a child or teenager. o Describe your experience with sports, music, or other hobbies. Were you recognized with trophies, ribbons, or other awards? Were there performance standards that you had to meet in order to win those awards, or were all kids recognized for participation? Choose whatever age group you’d like to write about. o A) If you received participation trophies or other forms of recognition for participation, do you agree with any of the critiques made in Trophy Nation or in Merryman’s article? For instance, did that universal recognition lower your ability to deal with frustration, or develop resilience, as the experts argued in Trophy Nation? Did you learn to fear failure, or did you develop an unrealistic sense of self-worth, both possibilities Merryman discussed in her article? In contrast, did your experience diverge from what was argued in the video or by Merryman? Maybe you earned a trophy every few weeks growing up, but you think it made you a hard-worker, or increased your commitment to teamwork? o B) If you didn’t receive participation trophies or other participation-based awards, do you think that helped you in any of the ways Trophy Nation or Merryman suggested it would? For example, did you practice more or ask a teammate to do extra drills with you so you could earn one of the coveted performance-based trophies? Or did you give up, thinking you’d never earn first place anyway, so why even try? Regardless of what happened, please provide examples of what it was like to be a kid or teen in your sport or other hobby and how you think that experience affected you. • IMPORTANT TIP: When providing evidence in your application paragraph, avoid generalizations in favor of specific examples whenever possible. For instance, let’s say you think your experience in sports during elementary school was similar to what was shown in the Trophy Nation video. You think that you didn’t learn resilience until playing high school football because before that, you were recognized just for participating. What incident demonstrates that claim? Did you try to quit freshman football during the first week? That’s an example that would work well as evidence. How did your previous experience with being recognized for participation play a role in wanting to quit football practice? That’s the explanation part of your paragraph. Assignment Format • Standard heading in the top left corner of the first page (single-spaced): First and last name, class name, assignment name, date, draft # (Please do not include a separate title page.) • Centered above your two paragraphs, include an assignment title in title caps (This is the name you give your work to help readers understand what the content will be about. It’s not the name of the assignment, e.g. Paper #2. That goes in the heading. Also, your title should refer to both paragraphs at the same time, not just one or the other. Because of that, if you’d like to use a place holder until you’ve finished both paragraphs, that’s fine.) • Total length approximately 2 – 2.5 pages (excluding the heading, title, and References page). Going over by a few lines is fine, but you should not go over by more than ¼ of a page. Writing concisely is part of the challenge of this assignment. (Note: I won’t read or grade anything longer than 3 pages, so please don’t turn in anything that long.) • Double-spaced; 12-point Times New Roman font • Standard 1-inch margins; left-aligned Assignment Content (IMPORTANT: 2-paragraph limit) Summary paragraph (Paragraph #1) • Topic sentence/introductory sentence = General summary statement that identifies the title of the newspaper article being summarized and the author’s name and provides a big picture understanding of what the article is about. Includes the year for APA citation purposes. • Length = Approximately 1/2 of a page (not including the heading or assignment title) • Content = In your words, identify the most important content from Merryman’s article. Remember to change the order and the combinations of information significantly from Merryman’s original piece. • Links/Transitions between one sentence and the next (and one idea and the next) • Concluding sentence(s) + transition to the topic of the second paragraph Application paragraph (Paragraph #2) • The topic sentence(s) tell(s) the reader what the rest of the paragraph will be about and should include 2 topics: o Topic #1: How you were rewarded in sports or other hobbies as a kid or teen, and how it made you feel at that time. o Topic #2: To what extent your experience supports or refutes one of the participation trophy critiques. (Be sure to identify which critique you’re analyzing.) • The body of the paragraph should include: 2 Claims o One claim about whether you had participation-based or merit-based rewards when you were a kid or teen in sports or other hobbies and how it made you feel (Topic #1) o One claim about the degree to which your experience supports or refutes any of the participation trophy critiques (Topic #2) ? What’s a claim? A claim is (a) sentence(s) the audience can reasonably disagree with that introduce(s) evidence. o You need a minimum of 2 pieces of evidence after each claim ? What’s evidence? Evidence is data, examples, and/or expert opinion that support(s) the claim. Here, the evidence is likely to come from your experience, so examples. E.g. One example of how my student identity was affected by the negative stereotype that women/girls are not good at math is that I developed moderate levels of math phobia starting in Junior High. I would get really nervous before Algebra class, and I had trouble focusing during exams because I was worried about doing poorly. o Sufficient explanation to make the claims and supporting evidence persuasive ? What’s explanation? Explanation provides any necessary context for understanding how the claims and evidence work together to create a persuasive argument. o Links/Transitions between one sentence and the next (and one idea and the next) o Concluding sentence(s) About the conclusion: o The conclusion is not a separate paragraph. It is a few sentences at the end of your second paragraph. o Use the conclusion to go beyond your personal experience and connect with your audience about the paragraph topic. o Here are some questions for you to consider, but what you choose to cover in the conclusion is up to you. ? Is there a place for participation-based rewards for kids? For adults? If so, in what context(s) and why? ? Should adults (whether or not they are parents) be concerned about the participation trophy trend? If so, what should they do about it? If not, why not? ? Are you concerned about the financial incentives of the trophy and prize industry influencing kids’ sports? If so, what do you think should be done? o Do not simply repeat or re-state your topic sentence position. The paper is quite short, so the reader will still remember what your topic sentence position was at the end of the paragraph. Please do not simply repeat that same idea in the conclusion. References page & in-text citations, both in APA format • In the summary paragraph, cite Merryman’s article using APA format as explained on eLearning (both in-text and on the References page). • Include at least 2 uses of reporting language in the summary paragraph. A list of reporting verbs is provided on eLearning. The list includes words such as pointed out, explained, argued, maintained, etc. They are used with the author’s or speaker’s name in a complete sentence such as: “Sanchez (2017) reported that most respondents were optimistic about the future.” • In the application paragraph, if you refer to something from Merryman’s article, Trophy Nation, or both, please cite the source accordingly. The necessary APA Citation information will be on eLearning.