ROUGH DRAFT: The first version of your rough draft should be prepared and submit

ROUGH DRAFT: The first version of your rough draft should be prepared and submitted via our
Blackboard page by the end of the day on Monday, May 8. Your first draft should be typed and must
be at least 4-5 double-spaced pages in length (with margins of no more than one inch). You can
submit your rough draft as a Word, PDF, or Google Docs document. Any rough drafts submitted
after Monday, May 8 will be considered late and penalized accordingly.
There are, of course, many similarities between Angela Davis’ Are Prisons Obsolete? and Ruth
Wilson Gilmore’s Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California.
The primary similarity is that both books deal with prisons and policing, analyzing what both authors
would describe as “the prison industrial complex” and arguing for the abolition of this system. But
there are also important differences between these two books, at the level of style, approach, and
writing techniques, and also in terms of the arguments that each author is making.
For this essay, I will ask you to discuss some of the similarities and differences between Davis’ and
Gilmore’s texts. This will involve a careful analysis of selected sections of these two books, with a
number of specific references to passages from their texts; that is, be sure to cite and analyze some
specific quotes from their texts, rather than just making general statements about each book. Try to
go beyond the obvious points that can be made too easily. For example, rather than just pointing out
some of the very apparent differences, talk about how these differences affect the work that they do
as writers. That is, how do these differences affect their language, their tone, their approaches to
writing, the way they tell their stories, the audiences they choose to address, and the arguments that
they make? Are there similarities in their experiences and in their approaches? Are there differences
in the conclusions that they reach about their topics, and in the suggestions they make about how to
address the problems that they describe? How would you imagine them responding to each other if
they were brought into a dialogue? (This is something that you, as the writer, can do: invite Davis
and Gilmore to have a conversation, and figure out how to stage it.)
Obviously, you will not be able to write about everything in these two books, so your job is also to
figure out how to focus your comparison of these books around a central argument or main idea of
your own. In doing so, feel free to draw on points you have already made about Are Prisons
Obsolete? in your first essay—although you should work to expand and adapt these ideas to fit your
argument in this essay—and also points that you have raised in your weekly informal writing
assignments and in the Discussion Forum. You are also welcome (but not required) to bring in other
writers we have read this semester. My only concern is that in discussing the similarities and
differences between Angela Davis’ and Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s texts, and in bringing them into some
sort of conversation with each other, you bring in your own perspective and your own arguments as
well.
I look forward to reading your drafts! Please be in touch with any questions.
FORMAL WRITING ASSIGNMENT: ESSAY #2: Your second formal essay for this class will focus
on connecting Angela Davis’ book Are Prisons Obsolete? with Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s book Golden
Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California.
I have attached my first formal assignment and the relevant books. Please understand the requirements of this assignment well