Midterm Study Guide

English 102
Spring 2014
deWit

Midterm Study Guide

You will be responsible for the following information for the midterm:

Vocabulary up to now; we will make a master list in class.

The Ten Lies and Twelve Poverty-Changing propositions at the end of the book. These 22 position statements summarize much of the book. You should be able to explain each of these with clarity and depth.

An informed position on each of the knowledge areas shared with you by your classmates. You are expected to understand the basics of each topic and how it relates to poverty. You will be able to spend most of your energy and argument on your area of expertise, but your midterm grade will be bolstered by how facile and inclusive you are of some of the other areas while writing your essay.

The Wealth Inequality Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

A few practice prompts that will help you write your midterm essay:

1) Explain the following quote from Smiley and West. Include deeper analysis of at least one area of expertise with some references and analysis to at least three other areas.

"There are nearly 150,000,000 persistently poor and near poor people in America who are not responsible for the damage done by the Great Recession. Yet they pay the price. The poor did not create the deindustrialization of America, unmatched corporate profiteering and greed, more than a decade of foreign wars, and unregulated tax benefits for the wealthy. When the largest economic institutions in the world were brought to their collective knees, they went crawling to the government's doorstep in search of salvation. The government obliged, allowing Wall Street to socialize its failure on the backs of Main St. Americans"(169).

2) Analyze either O'Reilly's little debate with West and Smiley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E95I365_LTM  or Boots Riley's poem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12JJv6yCk7Q in the context of The Rich and the Rest of Us and include deeper analysis of at least one area of expertise with some references and analysis to at least three other areas.