Launching Points and Monday's reading assignment

We'll talk about launching points in class today, so her are a few resources for you to consult if you feel your essay needs a launching point and you're working on creating one:

A basic overview of the launching point

A simple example of a revision that introduces a launching point

A second example essay in need of a launching point

The second essay with a more nuanced launching point introduced through revision.

And here is your reading assignment for Monday, James Baldwin's "A Letter to My Nephew" (this is a link to online publication; here's a PDF version if you prefer to print the essay). Written in 1962, "A Letter to My Nephew" is an open letter (a genre we'll talk about in class on Monday), and thus it serves the dual purpose of a correspondence and also an essay (or, in many cases, some other public statement).