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Consider this statement: Laws cannot change social values. Write a unified essay in which you perform the following tasks. Explain what you think the abovestatement means. Describe a specific situation in which a law might change a social value. Discusswhat you think determines when laws can change social values and when they cannot.

Sample Essay #1Laws are put into place to provide order to a society. Wherever humans live in groupsthere are usually problems because we all want what we want, and those things comeinto conflict with what others want, or need. The prompt is saying that while rules orlaws can be made it doesnt necessarily have an effect on the thinking of those who thelaws effect. You dont have to look back very far in history to see that there are counterpoints tothis. The Civil Rights Movement came from the lingering racism in Americans yearsafter slavery was abolished. The passing of the Voting Rights law gave birth to someslow shift in social values in America. We are not as racise as we use to be. Would wehave had a Black Supreme Court Justice, or Black President without it? What determines whether or not laws can change social values depends on the people.Humans are selfish. Survival is hard-wired into the biology of all animals and humans.People feel threatened by equality because they feel something may be taken awayfrom them (food, shelter, opportunity). We cannot pretend that racism in America nolonger exists. SCORE = 2 Explanation of score:This writer understands the prompt and the assignment, but the ideas are underdeveloped and losefocus. The first paragraph discusses the prompt statement, but with scant explanation and impreciselanguage. The second paragraph provides a specific situation, as required by Task 2, but itsrelevance to the essay is insufficiently described and explained. The concluding paragraph recognizes

the need to supply a determining factor that decides between the two contrasting perspectives, but itstrays off course (into a brief discussion of human biology) and never comes back around to thequestion at hand. Some organization of ideas is evident in this essay, but language use is frequently vague to the pointof inhibiting clarity. For example, The prompt is saying that while rules or laws can be made itdoesnt necessarily have an effect on the thinking of those who the laws effect. There is enoughattention to the rhetorical assignment to keep this essay above the 1 score point, but not enoughdevelopment, focus, clarity, or unity of ideas to warrant a score of 3.

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Sample Essay #2

In any democratic society there is a balance of power between the government and thepeople. In the United States there is a system of checks and balance that stops abusefrom any one of the three branches of government. The first check, though, is when wethe people choose who to elect as our representatives. If the majority of citizens feelstrongly about a certain subject then the government cannot hope to enact laws thatwould change those views. For example, take the endorsement of Volstead Act byPresident Wilsons administration. This began a period of prohibition of alcohol, despitethe objections of the majority of American citizens. Since most Americans wanted tobe able to enjoy beers and spirits in their free time, instead of following the law therewas a large underground movement that used speakeasies (clubs that sold liquor) inorder to avoid being punished by what was considered an unjust law. This example showsthat if a government tries to change a social value that the majority of people feelstrongly about, then this will only cause people to break the law, not change the socialvalue itself. Sometimes, however, there are cases when the social values of the majority of citizensare out of sync with the original intentions of this countrys founding fathers. This wasthe case during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Throughout the southernstates the convention of separate but equal prevailed, which was nonetheless in directviolation of the Declaration of Independences most famous statement that All menare created equal. Though the majority of white citizens were content with thisarrangement, it was a law that had to be changed. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a vocalminority of African Americans against this unjust law by organizing the Alabama busboycotts, but it was only until US laws were changed to reaffirm the values of thefounding fathers that true equality could be realized. The forced integration of manysouthern colleges and the presence of federal troops to ensure this fact demonstratesthe need for the changing and enforcement of laws. So it is we see that sometimeschange must be forced by the government when the majority of its citizens fail to liveaccording to the original intentions of the founding fathers. What then determines when laws can change social values? If a democratic countryssocial values do not match up with the original intentions of its founding, only thenshould laws be used to change those social values. But if the laws themselves contradictthe will of the framers of the constitution, then they will be rejected by the people andeventually repealed. Prohibition went against the desires of American citizens and, moreimportantly, the intentions of the founding fathers to make sure everyone is free to

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pursue happiness. In the end, a countrys social values shape the laws a governmentenact, but when those social values are out of sync, then a government must step in tokeep the people on the path that Washington, Jefferson, and Adams had envisioned forus. SCORE = 4

Explanation of score:Although this essay has simple ideas, they are clearly expressed and developed. The writer adequatelyaddresses the writing assignment, using good, clear language and an easy-to-follow organization thathelps the reader transition from one set of ideas to the next. The specific examples invoked (theVolstead Act, the Civil Rights Movement) are appropriate and illustrative. The essay fleshes them outwith description and explanation and relates them directly to the questions raised by the writingprompt. There is nothing complex about the ideas presented here. They are cogent and straightforward, butsimpleand even, in the third paragraph, a bit simplistic. (Was the pursuit of happiness in a barroomreally what the Founders had in mind?) In the conclusion, the writer carelessly slips from the questionof whether laws can change social values, to the question of whether they should change social valuesThis is not a fatal mistake, however. On the whole, the essay provides plenty of relevant, well-developed discussion focused directly on addressing the three rhetorical tasks. Sample Essay #3

The statement Laws cannot change social values raises the question of how youperceive the relationship between the government and the citizenry. The statement onits face suggests that a societys values ultimately cannot be engineered by itsgovernment. A government attempts to control the behavior of its people through laws.If a government decides to make, for example, hate speech (derogatory and offensivespeech aimed at a specific class of people) illegal, it disourages its citizens from makingpublic statements that threaten others with inflammatory calls to violence. Thegovernment passes this law against hate speech because it has a vision of society freeof discrimination on the basis of race, sexuality, or other cultural markers. This is anattempt not just to protect groups of citizens from threat and assault, but also toengineer a set of values into society via the legal system. The statement above suggeststhat while the government may change behavior of citizens, it does not change theirbeliefs and attitudes. The editor of a white supremicist website, for example, mightrefrain from outright calls for violence against Jews or African Americans in theinterest of not getting fined or jailed or shut down. His values, however, and those ofhis followers, are not changed even though their behavior is. One problem with this depiction, however, is that it takes for granted a disjuncture

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between the values of a society and its laws. It assumes a kind of paternalistic, or evenadversarial, relationship between lawmakers and citizens. But in a democracy, we arejustified in believing, at least most of the time, that laws reflect the values of societyand are not tools for engineering those values. We can suppose, for example, that thelaw against hate speech arises through democratically-elected representativesresponding to or participating in the desires of their constituents for a safe, equal, non-discriminatory society. The white supremacist website operator does not share thosevalues, but he is in the minority. By censoring him, the law succeeds in upholding thevalues of society as a whole precisely by controling the behavior of the dissentingminority. In non-democratic societies, laws often clearly do engineer social values. In the PRC,for example, the principles of the Moaist government are expressed through laws andaccepted by the citizens as proper values. Certainly there can be a coerciveundercurrent to this acceptance. The consequences for not accepting them are punitiveand harsh. But in general, if the government of China values the peasant, then societyvalues the peasant. If, later, the government says entrepreneurs are more valuable thanpeasants, then social values shift, along with behaviors. Then, it is no longer counter-revolutionary to seek wealth; rather, it is patriotic. In this way, the Partys valuesbecome the Peoples values. Here laws engineer rather than reflect values. Whether or not you believe laws can change social values depends upon how you see therelationship between citizens and their government. The white supremecist in Americano doubt sees the law against hate speech as oppressive social engineering. The averageAmerican, in contrast, might see the law not as a tool for controling social values, but asone for upholding them. From an American perspective, perhaps it appears that theChinese government engineers the values of its citizens by telling them what to believe.From a Chinese perspective, however, perhaps a lifetime of trusting in the Party andthe leaders of the government equips one to see the law as the means by which citizenscome to understand what is best for their society, what the proper social values shouldbe. Before addressing the question of whether laws can or cannot change social values,you must first address the question, what is the relationship between the governmentand the governed? SCORE = 6 Explanation of score:This analytical, unified response succeeds on the basis of clear writing, complex and thoughtfullyexplored ideas, and an unwavering focus on the prompt question. Essays earning a score of 6 often

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employ a conceptual framework that is useful in uncovering and exploring the complexities of theprompt. In this case, the writer frames the question in terms of the relationship between thegovernment and the governed, which allows an exploration of the difference between engineeringand reflecting social values through the law. This conceptual framework leads to an insightfulconsideration of the differences between democratic and non-democratic societies. Finally, in addressing Task 3, the writer brings all of these threads together to argue that deciding thequestion of whether laws change social values depends upon the relationship between citizens andtheir government. The seeds of this conclusion were planted in the essays opening sentence.Additionally, these exceptionally unified and insightful ideas are communicated in unflagginglyprecise language, with sophisticated sentence structures that aid in this clarity. The unity, focus,clarity, and quality of ideas here are all superior, earning this essay a score of 6.

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Fines and imprisonment are not enough to stop some people from littering and throwing their trash wherever they please.Although laws are passed in an effort to do good for the masses, some people tend to be set in their ways and have blatantdisregard for such laws. Laws banning littering and pollution to the environment are meant to instill moral values in people andattempt to educate the population about pollution and the harmful effects it can lead to. Despite such laws, individuals continueto pollute the Earth by littering trash wherever they see fit.

--> EPA and pollution laws for corporate companies. Change social values of executives and people who are working at/for thecompany.

--> Individual Level vs. Corporate Level (Small Scale vs. Large Scale)