Blog

Introduction:
In his book Street Life: Poverty, Gangs, and a PhD, Victor M. Rios tells the story of his personal journey from an impoverished childhood to academic acclaim, addressing a range of topics, as he notes in the book’s preface, including “social issues like abuse, youth violence, delinquency, fatalism, opportunity, stratification, poverty, resilience, college, positive role models, healthy choices, and personal transformations.” In offering a personal account of his own journey, Rios encourages us to reflect on the link between our personal lives and our educational paths, whether those journeys are marked by inspiration or beset by adversity. He also encourages us to then look outside of ourselves and see the lives of those whose educational opportunities have suffered from being marginalized by their society due to poverty, stereotyping, and hyper-criminalization. How can we better support our marginalized youth to achieve their educational goals?
Our Learning Objectives for the Finished Product of this Essay:
As stated throughout this course, every assignment we complete fulfills certain Learning Objectives from the Course Outline of Record (for the full list, please reference our home page).
Our objective with this assignment is to write our second essay where we will write “unified, well-organized, text-based essays of various lengths, applying a variety of rhetorical strategies with arguable theses and persuasive support, free of disruptive errors” (ENG 1A SLOs). The goal with this 1500 word essay is for you to develop and accomplish proficiency in the following writing and communication skills:
The finished essay exhibits that you are developing proficiency at synthesizing source material to support an arguable thesis
The finished essay exhibits that you are developing proficiency at critical reading and thinking strategies to develop cogent arguments, specifically that you’re learning how to:
critically read and

discuss academic texts,
formulate provocative arguments in reaction to the texts
demonstrate a logical organizational structure
synthesize source material through paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting.
The finished essay exhibits that you are able to evaluate primary and secondary sources in written form.
The finished essay exhibits that you are able to locate, evaluate, and integrate college-level research.
The finished essay exhibits that you are developing proficiency at documenting sources using MLA formatting
Essay Question(s)/Assignment:
You will write an essay of 1500 words (or more) that addresses all three of the following questions. Your thesis statement will be your direct answers to these questions, so your thesis statement will be 2-4 sentences long.
According to Rios, what are some of the educational challenges experienced by youth facing adversity?
What are 1-2 additional educational challenges that Rios does not explore?
What can be done to alleviate/dismantle those challenges? (In answering this question, you can reference Rios’ own suggestions as well as your own.)
Article and Research Expectation:
This is a research-based argumentative essay. Thus, you are required to summarize, quote, paraphrase, and analyze our Unit 2 texts and outside sources within your essay as evidence for your thesis. You will use at least five (5) sources total. Here are the sources you will use in your essay:
Street Life: Poverty, Gangs, and a PhD (our required text for the course)
at least two of four Rios articles (see below for links)
at least two additional scholarly and credible sources that you will choose on your own as evidence to support your answers (see the Guidance and tips on how to find and cite proper, credible sources page for research support and tips)
Unit 2 Rios Articles (Choose at least two):
“Hyper-Criminalization”
Actions
“Guilty by Association”
Actions
“Immigrant Targets”
Actions
“Cultural Misframing”
Actions