La Trobe University Melbourne Campus Opinion piece as per below

OPINION PIECEPlease note that topics listed below can also be used to write an academic essay. If you prefer to write an essay from that list of topics, rather than an opinion piece as listed here that is also okRATIONALE FOR WRITING AN OPINION PIECEIn the academy, we learn to back up opinions with evidence-based arguments. Some would go as far as saying that scholars should not disclose their own personal opinion on a topic. As you know, GSDS was built on redressing the way in which personal everyday lived experiences of the marginal were entangled in political issues that connected to a history of much deeper and broader struggles of inequality, power and justice.Popular opinion about marginalised social groups is often phobic, misleading and harmful, so GSDS scholars often start on the back foot when engaging with public debates. This assignment asks you to rise to the challenge of using your GSDS knowledge to engage with public debate. The aim of such writing is to influence and persuade readers of a position, perhaps introduce a new or nuanced perspective on a tired argument, or even change the very terms of debate.The difficulty with writing an opinion piece with academic knowledge is that the language of the public sphere aligns more readily with mainstream common sense and unfortunately sometimes also with popular prejudice. The task of the opinion piece is to engage the reader and get them thinking, talking and acting. The tone is thus quite different from the supposed position of neutrality and objectivity of much academic writing. The challenge is to find your own voice in your acquired academic knowledge (with as little jargon as possible) to engage with public debate.CHOOSING YOUR AUDIENCE AND TOPICOpinion pieces need to be tailored to a target audience and the topic needs to find a way of connecting to readers. Imagine you are writing for a newspaper or popular journal. The type of opinion piece could suit anything from the Herald Sun, through to TeenVogue, The New Yorker, or Overland. Also have a look at opinion writing on the ABC and SBS websites. Writing a piece for a publication that you read yourself is probably the best way of working out what you want to write about and who you want to talk to.Like the mock tweet exercises on padlet, this assignment also asks you to find something that you are passionate about that relates to democracy diversity and dissent. Feel free to use the same topic you have chosen for your mock tweets, or choose a new one. Contact Carol via email or arrange a zoom meeting if you want to discuss your choice.STRUCTURE OF OPINION PIECEWith a length of 800- 1000 words you will usually around 4 or 5 paragraphs, inclusive of introduction and conclusion.There are plenty of how to guides on the internet ? a simple wikihow high school-ish guide provides a good overview of the structure that can be applied to more complicated topics. The WritetoDone website offers a nice general guide, which is useful for thinking about voice and how to write for an average (non-academic) reader. It is also useful to have a look opinion columnists whose work that you like. Search for opinion pieces by Celeste Liddle, Gary Younge, Alana Lentin, Chelsea Bond, and GSDS lecturer, Yassir Morsi for examples of good op-ed writing.ASSESSMENTYou are assessed on the task of engagement for this assignment, not the end product. You are not expected to write like those who have been doing a couple of op-eds per week for decades. You will be assessed on getting the task done and taking the risk of engaging with a public issue. Please feel free to explore your voice in writing such a piece, and enjoy the process. Possible questions:1. Examine the problem of speaking for others when the matter of legitimate representation is at issue. Use one case or more to illustrate to what extent the identity marker of a representative matters. (think about the following in constructing your answer: Do they have to belong to the identity group that they are representing? What strategies would make the matter of representation more just and enabling for marginalised groups?)2. Assess the claim that ?authentic democracy is not compatible with representation?, particularly for under-represented, marginalised groups. 3. Assess how ?culture wars? take place in relation to constructions of Australian National Identity. Pay particular attention to ways in which one or more of such categories as gender, ethnicity, class, and sexuality play a part in these debates. 4. Assess how controversial artworks have been censored or threatened censorship on the grounds of one of the following: obscenity, blasphemy, sexual explicitness, or propaganda. What does the case reveal about the status of social identity involved, and what does this imply for dealing with comparable cases? 5. To what extent do you think art is a powerful means for inciting social change? Use case studies to illustrate answer 6. To what extent do you agree with Saba Mahmood that laws around free expression are not neutral, but produce ?normative notions of religion and religious subjectivity? (Is Critique Secular? p. 150) Using one case study or more (hijab debates, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, satirising religious deities) to answer the question. 7. Pick a case where an identity struggle has been accused of political correctness going mad (eg. Cultural appropriation, no platforming, trigger warnings, call out and pile on culture), and highlight the most important issues that need addressing to move discussion forward.