Week 2 — Summary First, Then Response: Reading Eisenhower's Farewell Address — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Assignment 2 of the term — audit a flawed summary of a real speech, write your own summary and response to it, and explain the speech to someone who has not read it.

This week you learned to read a text critically, annotate it, separate its topic from its claim and its support, write a summary that is neutral, complete, and in your own words, and write a response that gives reasons and stays separate from the summary. Last week you asked the five questions of the rhetorical situation about your own writing; this week you point them at someone else's text. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Writing Studio practise the same moves from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together.

The task

Your text is Eisenhower's farewell address, delivered on national television on 17 January 1961, three days before he left the presidency. Read the full transcript at the National Archives (the link is on this module's Readings & Resources page). You may quote the address only in these two sentences, copied exactly:

• "We recognize the imperative need for this development."
• "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

Describe everything else in your own words.

Part A — audit a flawed summary. Here is an illustrative summary of the address, written for this course to contain mistakes. It is not Eisenhower's words.

1. In his famous and prophetic farewell address of 17 January 1961, Eisenhower warned Americans about the military.
2. He said, "we must guard against the military-industrial complex."
3. He granted that a large defense establishment was necessary.
4. He also cautioned that federal research money could let experts steer public policy.
5. He urged the nation not to use up resources that later generations would need.
6. Sadly, his wise call for disarmament was ignored by everyone who came after him.

Of its 6 sentences, 2 contain an opinion-leak and 1 contains a quotation the transcript does not contain. Name those sentences, say how many sentences can stay unchanged and how you got that number, explain what is wrong with each problem sentence (an opinion-leak, a topic swapped in for the claim, a quotation you cannot find in the transcript), and rewrite each one. Search the transcript for the quoted words before you decide.

Part B — your own summary and response. A complete summary of the address names its 1 claim, its 1 concession, and its 3 other warnings. Say how many required elements that is, then write a summary of the address in 4–6 sentences, in your own words, that covers all of them and contains no judging word. Below it, in its own paragraph, write a response of 120–200 words that agrees, disagrees, or complicates, with at least two reasons that point to something in the address. Your response evaluates how the address makes its case; it does not need to take a side on any policy.

Explain it to a non-expert

A coworker at your part-time job saw a headline that mentioned the "military-industrial complex" and asks you what Eisenhower actually said. Write a 3–5 sentence message that tells them, in everyday words, what the address claims and what it concedes, and names one honest limit of your explanation — for example, that a short summary leaves out detail the full transcript holds. Explain any term your coworker might not know.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a neighbor who missed a two-page letter from your building's management. Model answer: "The letter says the boiler is being replaced, so the hot water will be off for one day. It also says rent is not going up this year, which surprised a few people. It does not say which day the work happens yet, so watch for a second notice. If you want the exact wording, the letter is posted by the mailboxes."

Use that pattern for your coworker, with your own explanation of the address.

Revise and reflect

Put your first draft away for a few hours, then reread it against the transcript. Circle every judging word in your summary, tick each required element it covers, and mark each reason in your response that points to the text. Make at least one change and keep both versions. Then answer one of these two options in 2–4 sentences; they carry the same weight:

• (a) Which change made your summary more neutral or more complete, and what in the transcript showed you it was needed?
• (b) Which change made your response more reasoned, and what reason about the text did you add?

Deliverables

Submit one document or recording that contains, in this order:

• your Part A audit, with the unchanged count and your rewrites;
• your Part B count of required elements, your summary, and your response;
• your message to your coworker;
• your first and revised versions of the part you changed, and your reflection.

Choose how you show it. Present your work as written text, or as a recorded audio or video explanation of about five minutes with a transcript. Every form is graded by the same scoring criteria. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

This version is designed to be completed without AI: do the reading, the audit, the summary, the response, and the writing yourself, without a chatbot or other AI tool. Every quotation you submit must be one of the two sentences above, copied exactly, and you should be able to find it in the transcript. Submitting AI-generated work as your own, or copying another student's summary, is an integrity violation under the course policy.

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