CIE100: Common Intellectual Experience - McPhee Writing Prompt (10 Points)

Assignment Goals

The goals of this assignment are:

1. To reflect upon the course texts in preparation for thoughtful discussion
2. To organize thoughts into a concise and cohesive response to a targeted question
3. To consider multiple viewpoints about ideas

The Assignment

Please read the questions below and answer them in a 1-2 paragraph analytic response. Say what you think, support it with at least one quote from the text, and then give a counterargument or alternative viewpoint a brief hearing, with a quote behind that too. Submit your response through Canvas before the start of class.

Analytic is the default genre for McPhee, but you may swap in any of the other four (analytic, letter, dialogue, marginalia+aphorism, or the Four A’s) so long as the quote and counterargument requirements are still met.

If the reading is what’s slowing you down, please see How to Read Hard Texts in CIE.

Writing Prompt

1. What does McPhee suggest about the wisdom, and the hubris, of attempting to control nature? Choose a passage where the engineers’ confidence and nature’s indifference collide, and discuss whether McPhee is finally an admirer or a critic of these efforts, or something more complicated.

2. The control of nature is not an abstraction here: the Perkiomen Creek flooding from Hurricane Ida in 2021 touched this region directly. Where in your own community has the control of nature succeeded, failed, or merely been postponed? What would McPhee notice about that place that its residents might not?

Submission

Please submit a word processed or PDF document.

Please refer to the Style Guide for code quality examples and guidelines.