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Writing in the World Projects |
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You are a citizen writing an editorial in your local newspaper trying to convince the members of your community to support your plan for Towering Pines, a nearby wilderness preserve.
You live in Hammond, Connecticut. Several months ago, a tornado touched down in town and decimated Towering Pines, a local wilderness preserve.
Towering Pines was once a destination for biologists throughout the country. The forest was one of the oldest stands of white pine on the entire Atlantic seaboard. Many of the trees dated from the 18th century and were over 150 feet tall.
Towering Pines was also an important part of life in Hammond. For generations, local residents had enjoyed the forest. A well-used nature trail wound through the trees. Science teachers often brought their students for field trips. In 1968, the town declared Towering Pines a wilderness preserve “not to be changed or altered by human hands.”
The tornado leveled many of the trees in Towering Pines. A few of the oldest trees remain standing. However, the preserve has lost much of its former grandeur.
In the past few months, your fellow citizens have begun debating what to do with Towering Pines. Many want the town to clean up the preserve—to clear out the fallen trees and transform the site into a park with athletic fields and a playground. Other residents, many of them members of a local environmental group, want to leave Towering Pines exactly as it is. They argue that the preserve still has value; they also note that, according to its charter, it was “not to be changed or altered by human hands.”
You’ve been asked by the Hammond Courier to address the issue of Towering Pines in an editorial. The paper’s editors have asked you to focus in particular on the issue of “wilderness.” What value did Towering Pines have, and what value does it now have, as a “wilderness preserve” for the residents of Hammond? What should the town do with Towering Pines?
Read your files and then write an editorial trying to persuade the residents of Hammond of your plan.
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All Hammond citizens have some stake in this debate, as the preserve lies within the city limits, and local funds will be used to pay for whatever action the town decides to take. However, several groups in town have taken special interest in the issue.
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The Hammond Courier is a weekly paper that tends to act as a booster for local businesses and their economic interests. While most of Hammond’s residents read the New York Monitor for national and international news, the Courier is their primary source for local news.
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After reading your files, you’ll be ready to do the prewriting activities necessary to write an effective editorial. These activities include:
You might also consult some actual editorials from your campus or local paper in order to become familiar with the conventions of the genre.
We recommend that you consult The Penguin Handbook as you work on this assignment. We also suggest that you use some of the Writing and Researching Worksheets, which are designed to offer you specific guidance at all stages of the writing process.
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The material included in these files is entirely fictional, as are the sources from which they are purportedly drawn. (The one exception is the excerpt from the Wilderness Act; we have provided citation information for the Act in File 4.) We have created these documents so that you may learn how to use sources effectively and appropriately before conducting original research of your own.
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