Check out the writing tips here!

In this assignment, you will:
1. Write your own 300-600 word description of love ("evol") among the Nacirema. (due October 19th by 11:59 pm)
2. Grade 3 examples that I have written. This will give you some experience in how to fairly assess the essays. (due October 22nd by 11:59 pm)
3. Grade 3 essays by your fellow students. (due October 22nd by 11:59 pm)
4. Grade your own essay ("self-assessment"). (due October 22nd by 11:59 pm)

Write the essay as if you are an anthropologist from outside the United States. Look at the Horace Miner article on the Nacirema again and imitate his style of writing.

One of your paragraphs should begin with the following sentence: "Using information from our textbook and Professor Wesch, we find that the Nacirema fascination with evol can be understood by taking a more holistic view of their culture, using the barrel model of culture to show how different aspects of their culture are integrated." In your paper, you should be able to demonstrate exactly how evol is a reflection of different aspects of Nacirema culture, using what you have learned in class and in your readings.

The essay will be graded by your peers using the "Calibrated Peer Review" system (CPR). (detailed login instructions here, and a full overview here.) Here are the steps you must take:

Step One: You must sign up to receive your login information on the CPR website: http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu/ Click "Log In" at the top and then select "New Users: First time logging in?" On the next page, select "Kansas State University - Wesch" as your institution from the drop down list and enter your Wildcat ID. You will need to fill out some basic profile information. It will then give you a special CPR login ID. Use this ID to log in.
Step Two: The first time you login it will present you with a tour of the system and ask you to take a pretest to make sure you understand the CPR system. (CPR will not let you enter your text until you have done this.)
Step Three: Papers must be submitted on the CPR website between October 12th at 10 am and October 19th at 11:29 pm.
Step Four: You must then login sometime between October 19th at 11:59 pm and October 22nd at 11:59 pm to do the calibrated peer review process.
Step Five: You will be able to review your score after the calibrated peer review process is complete on October 23rd.

Grading:
Your Essay: 75 points
Calibrations: 10 points
Peer Reviews: 10 points
Self Assessment: 5 points

Other Notes:
1. The paper should be about *romantic love* (not just "love" in general)
2. Make sure you try to see the connections between infrastructure, social structure, and superstructure. Don't just describe these 3 levels. Really try to see how the 3 levels are connected and try to explain why romantic love is the way it is among Americans based on other aspects of our culture.
3. We have also discovered that the system does not know how to copy quotation marks, so if you have quotation marks in your essay and you copy and paste it in from Word it will not know what to do with them. The best way to deal with this may be to compose your essay in the system itself, or to write it in something simple like Notepad (since it does not add fancy code that you can't see the way that Word does).
4. There are absolutely no make-ups for this assignment. It is very important that everybody complete the assignment or the CPR system will not work properly.


Here is a grading scale to help you out while you are writing (and grading) the evol papers.
The system will ask you to rate the essays you grade on a scale of 1-10.

9-10: Paper accomplished 3 things very well:
1. Describes love among Americans
2. Accurately identifies key features of American infrastructure, social structure, and superstructure.
3. Demonstrates how these 3 levels of culture are integrated in a way that *explains* why Americans are so into "love".

6-8: Paper does 2 of the 3 tasks well. A paper in this range may identify the key features but fail to demonstrate how they are connected. Or it may not correctly identify the 3 levels of culture. For example, a paper that suggests that the market economy is a feature of the superstructure (which is incorrect) would fall into this category.

3-5: Paper only does 1 of the 3 tasks well. A paper in this range might describe love, but may fail to address the model of culture altogether. For example, the student might have left out the required sentence that should lead them to discuss the various levels of culture.

0-2: Paper did not address the assignment. For example, the student did not understand that the Nacirema is American spelled backwards and tried to compare Americans to an exotic tribe called 'the Nacirema."

If you do not think your grade is fair, you can opt to have your TA re-grade the essay for you. You will receive the grade the TA assigns. This may move your score up or down.