Discuss and analyze a public space where you feel completely comfortable: a coffee shop, a campus bar, a grocery store, a museum, a government building, for instance. What are the criteria for your own comfort and ease there? Are there any criteria that the space does not meet in your case? In a three- to four-page essay, describe the place you are analyzing and the reason the analysis is important for you and your audience. State a thesis about the space and then articulate the causes or consequences of your comfort in the space.
2. Write for ten minutes about the causes or the consequences of being in a specific public space where you do not feel comfortable, following the instructions of the previous prompt (#1), making sure to identify the criteria that make others feel very comfortable there. You might consider a gym, a street at night, a club, a restaurant alone, a classroom. Be prepared to share your response with the rest of the class.
3. Given your experience and observations, consider how social media influence the ways people inhabit online public space. In a brief investigative report, define the problem you are addressing, explaining its significance to you and your audience. Be sure to state a thesis, developing it with good reasons that you support with specific examples, details, anecdotes, or data. Your report will include various perspectives, examples, and effects of people inhabiting online public space. Be prepared to share your findings.
4. Write for ten minutes about your response to Edwards’s position argument or Drohan’s investigative report. How does either set of arguments about the use of public space coincide with or diverge from your experiences in a town or city you know well?
