What role does “critical awareness” play in maintaining responsible relationships?

What does it take to build critical awareness in our interactions with other people? Write a 4-page paper in which you explore this question using evidence from the readings to illustrate, test, and develop your ideas.
The following questions will help you generate ideas using some of the key terms provided by Cadogan and Wallace. Use any of these to begin writing:

* What role does “critical awareness” play in maintaining responsible relationships?
* What “default settings” do we need to combat in order to achieve that awareness?
* How can we work to build better understanding of others?
* How can we become “conscious,” caring of others, aware of the choices we are making?
* What does “freedom” mean when it comes to our interactions with other people?

Every assignment you’ve done so far in the class, every skill you’ve practiced, enables you here. Your understanding of the readings, the unique perspective you bring, your ability to summarize the readings (big picture, little picture) your ability to use close-up quotations as evidence, to interpret the meanings, and reflect on the implications of what you’ve read will help you shine. They will all work together to strengthen and develop your thesis in this paper.
Criteria for Success:

* Write a four page paper (1 sentence on page 5!), double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12 point font, no extra spaces between paragraphs.
* Readings: Use evidence from the readings in every paragraph to deepen your thinking, and to convey your reasoning to your readers in clear and convincing ways.
* David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water”
* Garnette Cadogan’s “Walking While Black”
* Optional: one concrete example of your own that relates directly to the readings and reveals something new
* Thesis: Build a sophisticated (2-3 sentence) thesis that sets up an organizational map for your readers, provides a controlling idea for the paper, and develops the sense of purpose throughout the paper.
* Organization: Use body paragraphs to build a logic-based progression of points that fulfill your thesis. It helps to start with the easiest, clearest example from the readings and work your way up to a complicated example. Topic sentences (the first sentence of each paragraph) can help because they should announce the main point in each of your paragraphs.
* Summaries: Provide big-picture summaries of Wallace and Cadogan in your intro and one little-picture summary of at least one example from one of them in every body paragraph.
* Quotes: Aim for approximately one well-chosen quote (1-3 lines long) per paragraph, powered up through the 3 “I’s”. This will help you ground your ideas in the readings and gain energy from them without letting them overwhelm your authority and control as a writer.
* Connections: You can convince your readers in part by showing them how David Foster Wallace’s idea that we need “critical awareness” in every aspect of our lives applies in crucial and necessary ways to Cadogan’s ideas about walking in various settings. Remember that YOUR readers may not know these two reading at all and certainly don’t understand how they connect. If you’re using an example from your own experience, show how it helps your readers think about this issue in even more specific ways. If you don’t intervene, the lack of awareness and education may prevent your readers from understanding your ideas. Help them think it through