Reading an economics op ed in writing class

One frustration I have, teaching freshman composition, has to do with the essays that appear in readers.

Almost universally, they are about one subject and one subject alone: identity. That’s it. Hispanic identity, Asian identity, black identity, female identity, gay identity, disability identity, on and on.

And everything is personal. First person, no research, no footnotes.

Which would be fine if my students were going to be writing 1st-person, no-research papers in the future. But they’re not.