Current Events · U.S.

Annotated essay tutorials — read how the argument is built.

School Shootings Essay
U.S.

School Shootings Essay

*Why mental health deflections, parenting myths, and security theater all fail — and why gun access remains the one vari...

Protesting National Anthem Essay
U.S.

Protesting National Anthem Essay

*How Colin Kaepernick's anthem protest fits a long tradition of athlete activism — and why the backlash reveals more abo...

Fake News Essay
U.S.

Fake News Essay

*Satire, bad reporting, and propaganda are not the same thing — and confusing them with deliberate falsehood is itself a...

President Donald Trump Essay
U.S.

President Donald Trump Essay

*Written days after the 2016 election, this dated analysis examines how Trump won, what his early cabinet choices signal...

Black Lives Matter Essay
U.S.

Black Lives Matter Essay

*A 2016 model essay arguing that Black Lives Matter is a civil-rights movement rooted in institutional racism, not a ter...

Death Penalty Essay
U.S.

Death Penalty Essay

*How the 2016 presidential election stood to reshape capital punishment doctrine for a generation — a legal and historic...

Zika Virus Essay
U.S.

Zika Virus Essay

*A 2016 snapshot of the Zika crisis — tracing transmission, birth-defect risk, and why the CDC's own admission made indi...

Police Violence in the United States Essay
U.S.

Police Violence in the United States Essay

*A dated but instructive case study in how competing data streams — rising police shootings of civilians and declining o...

United States Presidential Election of 2016 Essay
U.S.

United States Presidential Election of 2016 Essay

*A mid-2016 analysis of the Trump–Clinton contest: how two unconventional candidacies fractured both parties and made th...

2016 Presidential Election Essay
U.S.

2016 Presidential Election Essay

*A snapshot of the 2016 presidential primary field — who the leading candidates were, what they stood for, and why the r...

Boston Marathon Bombing Essay
U.S.

Boston Marathon Bombing Essay

*A dated case study—written May 2015—examining what the Boston Marathon bombing trial reveals about radicalization, moti...

Blue Bell Listeria Outbreak Essay
U.S.

Blue Bell Listeria Outbreak Essay

*How Blue Bell Creameries' 2015 listeria crisis exposed systemic failures in food-safety culture—and what a regional bra...

Baltimore Riots Essay
U.S.

Baltimore Riots Essay

*Why Baltimore burned in April 2015 — and what the riots reveal about race, policing, and the limits of peaceful protest...

Aaron Hernandez Essay
U.S.

Aaron Hernandez Essay

*How a gifted NFL tight end's unchecked history of violence culminated in a first-degree murder conviction that ended hi...

Michael Brown Ferguson Missouri Essay
U.S.

Michael Brown Ferguson Missouri Essay

*How the 2014 Ferguson shooting exposed fault lines in policing, press freedom, and prosecutorial integrity that social...

Obamacare Essay
U.S.

Obamacare Essay

*A 2013–2014 analysis of the Affordable Care Act: how it expanded coverage, why its penalties proved contentious, and wh...

Air Safety and the Asiana Airlines Crash Essay
U.S.

Air Safety and the Asiana Airlines Crash Essay

*How the 2013 crash of Asiana Flight 214 exposed gaps in pilot training requirements and forced a reckoning with airline...

States\' Legalization of Marijuana Essay
U.S.

States\' Legalization of Marijuana Essay

*Colorado and Washington legalized recreational marijuana while federal law still banned it — a collision that raised ha...

The Government Shutdown Essay
U.S.

The Government Shutdown Essay

*A dated case study of the October 2013 federal shutdown — its causes, congressional dynamics, and what a temporary deal...