The focus of your essay should be a particular problem/issue/theme concerning our course topic of migration. Base your discussion on the readings and videos we’ve done so far. Select a topic that really grabs your interest?the best writing comes when the writer is most engaged with the topic!

Your objective should be to explore the problem you’ve chosen, grounding your discussion explicitly in the readings. You do not need to stick to any one reading?but do stick to your chosen theme, without too much digression (focus!). You may also relate your discussion to migration issues in the media or current events, but you still need to ground it explicitly in the readings.

Try to build an argument or make an effective case for presenting your assessment of the problem/theme you choose to explore. You don’t need to have all the answers! Use this essay as an opportunity to formulate your own ideas, try them out, raise questions, or point towards other themes you’d find interesting or important.

Possible topics include (but by no means are limited to):

• compare/contrast a couple of our authors’ approaches to migration
• compare the experience of two different groups of migrants we’ve read about (e.g. Hmong/Tonga/Mexicans/Salvadorans/etc)
• explore how the case study discussed in one of our books illustrates a concept or perspective from one of our theoretical articles (e.g. how does the Tongan case illustrate Schiller et al on the concept of "transmigrant"?)
• etc (there are zillions?depends what YOU are interested in!)