Project 02: Letter to the Editor

Overview

For this project, you are to work in groups of 2 - 4 students to write a letter to the editor on a topic we discussed in class. This letter must meet the following requirements:

  1. The letter must be one or two pages in length.

  2. The letter must be addressed to a public official or a newspaper publication. The choice of destination is up to you.

  3. The letter must argue for a specific position on a topic and back it up with evidence or references. You may need to do additional reading to find information to support your arguments.

  4. All group members must co-sign the letter.

Once the letter is submitted, your group must capture proof of submission (ie. a response from the recipient, form submission confirmation, etc.). A screenshot is sufficient for proof.

Communication

The goal of this project is to provide you an opportunity to synthesize information related to an ethical issue affecting our current world and to formulate a persuasive argument regarding the issue.

Topics

Your group's letter must address an issue related to one of the following articles:

  1. Harvard Student Says He Was Barred From U.S. Over His Friends’ Social Media Posts

  2. H-1B Visa denials at all-time high

  3. Google has a problem with pregnant workers, employee memo alleges

  4. Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Warns Always-On Work Culture Creating ‘Broken’ People

  5. Americans Are Among the Most Stressed People in the World, Poll Finds

  6. My father was IBM’s first black software engineer. The racism he fought persists in the high-tech world today

  7. Predicting Women's Persistence in Computer Science- and Technology-Related Majors from High School to College

  8. Where Does Affirmative Action Leave Asian-Americans?

  9. Richard Stallman’s Exit Heralds a New Era in Tech

  10. Political tension at Google is only getting worse

  11. Crash Course | How Boeing's Managerial Revolution Created The 737 Max Disaster

  12. Attacks on the Whistle-Blower Miss the Point

  13. How ICE Picks Its Targets in the Surveillance Age

  14. I Work for N.S.A. We Cannot Afford to Lose the Digital Revolution.

  15. FBI misused surveillance data, spied on its own, FISA ruling finds

  16. US to collect social media profiles from immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees

  17. Trump Administration Asks Congress to Reauthorize N.S.A.’s Deactivated Call Records Program

  18. Attorney General Bill Barr Will Ask Zuckerberg To Halt Plans For End-To-End Encryption Across Facebook's Apps

  19. The Same FBI That Wants To Destroy Encryption Is Still Illegally Snooping on Americans

  20. The Myth of Consumer-Grade Security

  21. The Ringification of Suburban Life

  22. I Visited 47 Sites. Hundreds of Trackers Followed Me.

  23. Internet Hacking Is About to Get Much Worse

  24. I left the ad industry because our use of data tracking terrified me

  25. The biggest lie tech people tell themselves — and the rest of us

Submission

Your project is due at noon, Saturday, October 19. You should upload your letter to the editor (as a PDF) and proof of your submission (as a screenshot) on Google Drive.

To submit your project, one group member should fill out the following form:

Submission Form