1102 Under Re-Development

 

BRIEF WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

WA1 : WA2 : WA3 : WA4 :

MAJOR PAPER ASSIGNMENTS

MPA1 : MPA2 : MPA3 : MPA4

PAPER REQUIREMENTS

BRIEF WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

WA1

WA2

WA3

WA4

MAJOR PAPER ASSIGNMENTS

Major Paper Assignment 1: Rhetorical Analysis

The Assignment: The first assignment provides an opportunity to explore the power of persuasion. For this assignment, I would like you to develop a 3-5 page rhetorical analysis of one of the following essays from The Pop Culture Zone:

"Static Minds" 414-416
“The Ten Most Important Comic Books of the 1990s" 507-512
"Barry Bonds Took Steroids . . ." 627-628
"Beavis and Butt-Head: No Future for Postmodern Youth 685-691

Your goal in this analysis is to demonstrate how the various aspects of the text work together to achieve the writer’s goal, and to achieve that goal you will need to consider the rhetorical situation, the author, the audience, and the use of rhetorical strategies in the article.

Purpose: The purpose of the rhetorical analysis is to help you develop your powers as a rhetorician. You are both to argue for a text's persuasiveness and to be persuasive in doing so.

In addition, the purpose of this assignment is to help you implement the methods of rhetorical analysis we’ve discussed in class so far so that you can develop the expertise in rhetorical argumentation that you will need for other projects throughout the semester.

Process: This kind of analysis differs in significant ways from the literary, historical and philosophical writing you may have done for other classes and in high school. In order to develop this analysis, you need to look through a rhetorical lens—this is an opportunity for you to work through a professional and disciplinary perspective. You must, for instance, evoke and mention explicitly the terms of our discipline (pathos, logos, ethos, kairos, audience, persona, text).

Your argument should be about the strategic use of rhetorical appeals and persuasive power of the particular text and not about the content itself. Focus on HOW it works, not simply WHAT it conveys; discuss how the use of rhetorical appeals determines the effectiveness of the argument and don’t get distracted into arguing passionately a particular position or extolling the beauty/creativity of the article! To complete the essay successfully, you will need to discuss specific and concrete elements of the article—the way we will do over the next few class meetings. Rely on the guidance provided by discussion and lecture in daily class sessions.

Invention/Heuristics: Before you begin writing the essay, write out your answers to following questions. Hand in your responses with your polished essay.

• Describe all the elements of the article in as much concrete detail as possible.
• What do you think is the overall argument and purpose of the article?
• What is the purpose(s) of the argument?
• How does the writer want the audience to think and/or act differently having read the article?
• Who do you think is the specific persona and audience of the article?
• What prompted the argument (i.e., what is its exigence)? That is, why did the writer take the time to produce this particular article at the particular time s/he did?
• What rhetorical appeals operate in this text (list each one in turn)?
• What are the effects of these rhetorical appeals on the persuasiveness of the article?
• What is the primary claim, and what are the supporting claims in the article?
• What type of support is used: appeals, evidence, examples?
• What counterarguments or concessions are made in the article?
• What would you like your readers to learn or think about in reading your analysis of the article?
• What specific and unique perspective can you share about this article?
• What will be your argument for this paper?

 

Major Paper Assignment 2

Major Paper Assignment 3

Major Paper Assignment 4: Proposing a Policy/Action

The Project: In the second project for this class, you chose an issue, developed an understanding of that issue’s history and origin, and presented your findings in a compelling manner to an audience to whom the issue mattered. In the third project, you considered something a bit more complex: the multiple arguments currently in circulation around the issue.

And now, in this project, you are presented with the opportunity you have all been waiting for all semester. Having studied the origin, history and arguments about the issue, you are finally sufficiently well informed to offer your own thoughts on the issue. Therefore, this assignment asks you to take up the issue you have been working with and develop a proposal for a policy/action that will directly address the problem(s) associated with the issue.

Your proposal does not have to ‘solve’ the problem, but the audience should be convinced that your proposal will `make a dent’ in it.

Goals: First, to use writing and reading in order to understand the policy/action that will address the problem and its sources and to successfully craft an essay that moves the audience to acceptance of your proposal.

Composition: The audience for this paper will be of your choosing. It may include your classmates and me (but remember, I am only one small part of your audience).
As a consequence of your argument, the audience will be moved by your composition. Your response should enlarge the audience’s understanding of the possible ways to address the issue.

A successful composition will move beyond simplistic analyses such as pro/con arguments or a 5-paragraph theme. Your response to this assignment should be to develop a purpose (what you want the audience to think, know, feel, or do) that shapes the audience’s response to the solution of the problem and a thesis that will cause it to understand the problem and policy/action relationship the way you do.
You may use any organizational pattern that is suggested by this assignment (topical, chronological, spatial, analogical, etc.)

While the audience for this assignment is of your choosing, not all will be thoroughly familiar with the problem you have been analyzing, and maybe not even the sources. Your response should make it clear to the audience what you believe will address the problem. You will need to convince us that you are reasonably well informed about the problem and sources that you have investigated. You can do this by supplying us with the specifics you discovered while investigating the solution. You may be able simply to insert into the paper one or more of the heuristic descriptions you wrote.

A successful paper will demonstrate the complex relationship between problem and solution by doing careful research and description. Moreover, the finished paper must demonstrate that you understand the effects your problem/issues have in the world. You can best persuade us of this by stating your conclusions clearly and by supporting them with evidence drawn from your observations and evaluations. You should be able to use some or all of the heuristic material you generated while analyzing your notes to accomplish this.

Your task will be to write a 4-6 page paper in which you integrate a variety of sources, properly document those sources using MLA style, and in which you demonstrate the richness and complexity of the issue. You will need to continue the research you began in Project 2.
 
Constraints: Follow the Paper Requirements for formatting the paper and assembling the package, including heuristics, you will submit on the Due Date. Note: ALWAYS bring your jump drive to class on workshop days.

HEURISTICS

READ carefully BEFORE you do anything. You need to be clear about how the steps all tie together so you won't end up with missing pieces, or maybe even worse, having to reduplicate some steps.
 
The following questions are heuristic; that is, they are strategies designed to help you with inventional issues by carefully structuring your investigation, and they can help you to take more thorough notes than you might without using them. You needn't try to answer all of the questions—some of them intentionally ask the same question but in a different way—and you may think of other things that you want to note that are not suggested by the questions.
 
Also, take note that the assignment is written to allow for the possibility that the problem you are working with has only one source. It is, however, more unusual for a problem to have only one source. Be sure that you have carefully investigated before arriving at the conclusion that there is only one.  

Investigate: Explore/research and make notes.

1. Summarize what you have already learned about the problem?
   1. WHY is the problem a problem?
   2. Why does it need addressing now, i.e., what would happen if we just ignored it?
   3. If we don’t do something about the problem, or worse, do the wrong thing about the problem, what all could go wrong? What would be the consequences? Effects in the world? For whom?
   4. WHO is it a problem for? Who is most affected by it? If someone else were affected by it, would people see/understand the problem differently? Why?
      
      
2. Investigate policy/action proposals:
   1. What policies/actions have been proposed by others to address the problem?
   2. What are the limits of those proposals? E.g., what do they not do that they should, or need to? Is their cost a factor? Who do they leave out? How long will they take to work? Etc.
   3. For a policy/action to really `get at’ the problem, what should it include?
   4. Even if none of the proposals you have examined seem to be effective, which one do you like best and why? How could you modify it to make it work?
      
      
3. Examine the relationship between the problem itself, its sources, and the policy/action you are recommending:
   1. What are you going to address: the symptoms (the problem and its effects in the world) or the sources, i.e., what brought the problem into being?
   2. How does who is affected by the problem shape the kind of policy/action you are recommending?
   3. Is your policy/action fair-minded? Why or why not? Who does it help? Does it hurt anybody? If so, why do you think this is okay?
   4. Does the audience agree that what you have described as a problem IS a problem? If not, why, and what do you plan to do about that?
      
   5. Does the audience already agree to the sources of the problem? If not, how do you plan to address that?
   6. Does your solution address the symptoms (the problem and its effects) or the sources?
      
      
4. After You Investigate:
   1. Using your notes, write a brief description (Description #1) of the solution you will be addressing in your paper. Try to give enough details that someone who has never come in contact with or thought about the solution can understand their significance and the various ways that people talk about them. Explain why, so far, no one has been able to solve the problem but your solution will.
   2. Now write another brief description (Description #2) of the problem, using all the feedback you have received. Your goal is to make the solution seem feasible for your audience. Your goal is to convince the audience to stay with you while you unravel the solution you have briefly covered here.
      
      
5. Analyze/Evaluate:
   1. Who is the audience for this paper? Can your audience actually do, think, know, or feel what you propose?
      If not why have you chosen this audience to write to? Who CAN do what you are proposing?
   2. HOW will the policy or action you propose dispose of the symptoms of the problem or the source(s) of the problem, or at least `make a dent’ in it/them?
   3. What will the stakeholders get out of your solution? If you have stakeholders whose stake is in keeping the status quo, how do you plan to go around them? Or, more boldly, change their minds?
   4. How will opponents to your policy/action feel about your proposal? Is there any way you can accommodate any of their concerns?
   5. Have you established your own ethos, i.e., your right to make the proposal you do? How do you plan to use it to move your audience?
   6. How do you plan to use emotion and reasoning to move your audience?
   7. What are the counterarguments against your proposal? How do you plan to address them?
      
      
6. Detailed Proposal:
   1. Detail, step by step, the procedures, people, events, equipment which will eliminate the sources of the problem or minimize the symptoms of the problem. (Be careful not to offer a global policy/action which does not tell your audience what it should do to participate in the solution.)
   2. Tell your audience what your plan entails, whether it is likely to be instituted, how it might be instituted, and whether there are serious drawbacks to your solution. If your proposal is countered by someone else, tell your audience why your proposal is still better.