answer this prompt: For this week’s blog post, select either Le Guin’s “The New Atlantis” or Cohen and Elkins-Tanton’s Earth on which to focus. Then, make an argument about the way your chosen text narrates humanity’s relationship to the earth. What does this narrative value about the Earth? About humanity? What does it imagine as the proper relationship between the two? choose either: Jeffrey Jerome, and Linda T. Elkins-Tanton. Earth. Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. OR Le Guin, Ursula K. “The New Atlantis.” The Compass Rose, Harper & Row, 1982, pp. 12–40.

FOLLOW THIS TO EARN GOOD GRADE: Write a post of 500-700 words (this would be approximately 2 double-spaced pages if you were writing a traditional essay). Respond directly to the question Have a thesis statement (that you format in bold) at the end of your first paragraph that makes an argument about our texts. Good arguments about literature usually do two things well: (1) They make an interesting observation about a text, and (2) they make an argument about why that interesting observation matters (the “so what?” element). The chapters we read in Schilb & Clifford’s A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature will be our guide to succeeding in this assignment. Consult them regularly! Organize your ideas into well-developed paragraphs. Blog posts that consist of one giant block of words will always earn an Unsatisfactory grade. Support your argument with well-chosen evidence from our texts. Blog posts that do not quote from the text(s) they are discussing, or do not offer analysis/commentary about the quotations they include, will always earn an Unsatisfactory grade. Use the rules of MLA style for citation and documentation. This includes parenthetical citations to cite quotations — for example, (Blair 47) — and a Works Cited list at the end of the post. I recommend consulting the Purdue Online Writing Lab’s MLA Formatting and Style Guide regularly to learn and apply the rules of MLA style. Write clear, grammatically-correct prose that avoids distracting elements, such as errors in spelling, punctuation, or grammar. Be sure to proofread your work and edit carefully before submitting it. Writing Center tutors are available to you if you’d like their help. Please see the “Help from the Writing Center during Summer Term” section of our syllabus for details. Tag your post with 1-3 keywords. This will help us make connections as the course unfolds.