Topical Persuasive Writing
Choose one of the following topics and write a 5-7 page persuasive paper. To make your argument, you will need to use one example from each of the three historical periods: (i) Progressive Period (Modern Times, A Nous La Liberte), (ii) World War II Era (Citizen Kane, The Fountainhead) and (iii) Post-War Period (Nine to Five, Network, Bartleby, Glengarry, Glen Ross). Remember to consider the consequences and implications of your findings so that you can provide important and meaningful conclusions to your essay. 1.) Describe how popular attitudes towards business–as reflected in the different movie treatments from each of the three periods–have shifted over time, and explain what social, political, economic, or cultural changes accounted for these shifts. 2.) Compare the different attitudes to women’s roles in the workforce in each of the three periods, and explain how and why they have changed. 3.) Consider how expectations of working people (i.e. laborers, office workers, managers, etc.) have shifted in each of the three periods, and account for those changes. Please feel free to use the supplemental readings in the course, as well as any other research you need to do, and cite all material in APA format.
