I’d like to choose sports as my theme. Sports have had a significant impact on my life. At times, I use them as an escape just to get away from all that’s going on in my life, even if it’s for a little while. I do something having to with sports almost everyday of my life whether it’s playing, watching or reading. Their is many approaches I could take to each of the theme based assignments, the hard part will be condensing my ideas and picking one.
Memoir: Could talk about the experience of attending a Boston Red Sox game, my high school baseball career/making it to the state tournament
Ethnography: Could talk about sister’s high school games, retail sporting goods store, Red Sox game, weight room or gym
Argument: Steroids, high salaries, marijuana in sports, should college players be paid, mentality of sports fans/high school parents, advertisements/sponsorships
It sounds like sports will work fine as a theme for you. As we go along, I’ll be glad to give some guidance on choosing among some of those options. For memoir, I’d stay away from Red Sox game unless you have a unique take on it and a good memory. Your own sports career would yield many possibilities–don’t just tell us about making the state tournament though. I’ve read lots of those essays and most of them sound very similar. Think about the characters on your team, something that happened on an important level beyond balls and strikes and catching or dropping baseballs or whatever. Think more about what you get out of sports–sometimes it’s the small moments in a locker room or on the bench before a game can be more revealing than the Big Game that gets written up in the local newspaper. In other words, bring us *into* what it’s like to play on a team, not the play-by-play.
(The ethnography ideas sound fine, and some good possibilities for arguments.)