Hello all,
As most of you will no doubt have figured out by now, Waubonsee has shut down for the day due to inclement weather. As a result, all finals scheduled for today will now be given at the same time and location this Friday, the 14th of December.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Final Thoughts
Hello all,
As we move into these last few days of the term, I want to remind everyone to study chapters 23, 23, and 27 for the final grammar quiz, which will be on our final exam day, Tuesday, December 11th, at 10:15. I will have your final drafts ready to give back to you, as well as having grades for your journals, your portfolios, and your revisions if you chose to make any.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank you all for being a part of this course. I know it seems like a long time ago, but not too many months ago we were all meeting for the first time, and there was quite a bit of uncertainty concerning the use of these blogs, and the computers in general. I hope that these setups have been valuable for you all--I know that I have learned a great deal while working with you all. I wish you all a very happy holiday, and the best of luck in your future endeavors.
As we move into these last few days of the term, I want to remind everyone to study chapters 23, 23, and 27 for the final grammar quiz, which will be on our final exam day, Tuesday, December 11th, at 10:15. I will have your final drafts ready to give back to you, as well as having grades for your journals, your portfolios, and your revisions if you chose to make any.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank you all for being a part of this course. I know it seems like a long time ago, but not too many months ago we were all meeting for the first time, and there was quite a bit of uncertainty concerning the use of these blogs, and the computers in general. I hope that these setups have been valuable for you all--I know that I have learned a great deal while working with you all. I wish you all a very happy holiday, and the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Outline Update and Rough Draft Conference Schedules
Hello all,
As you digest the last of your turkey and look towards the holidays (and the end of class!) I will remind you that there are still a few assignments left before we can all bid each other farewell. A number of folks neither emailed me nor posted their outlines--if you did not, you do not receive the ten points this assignment was worth. More importantly, you will also not receive any points for anything else (the rough draft, the bibliography, even the final draft) from this last paper until you get the missing outline to me! I have responded to most of your blogs concerning this--if you posted your outline on your blog, I responded to it; if you emailed it to me, I responded to the message. If you did neither of those things, I left you a message on the last post your did publish, so you may have to dig to get my response.
As far as rough draft conferences go, I have either emailed or posted each of you with your individual conference day. If you forget (or never look), the schedule goes like this:
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27: Barnak, Blaney, Casper, Cotts, Cudzewicz, Davenport, Forbes
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29: Perez, Plate, Reel, Singer, Wagner, Feldott
Make sure that you have your rough drafts (at least two pages worth, preferably more) ready to go on your conference day. You only have to show up for class the day your conference is scheduled, and the bibliographies are also due the day of your conference.
If you have any questions, concerns, or confusion, please email me, come see me during my office hours, or leave me a voicemail.
As you digest the last of your turkey and look towards the holidays (and the end of class!) I will remind you that there are still a few assignments left before we can all bid each other farewell. A number of folks neither emailed me nor posted their outlines--if you did not, you do not receive the ten points this assignment was worth. More importantly, you will also not receive any points for anything else (the rough draft, the bibliography, even the final draft) from this last paper until you get the missing outline to me! I have responded to most of your blogs concerning this--if you posted your outline on your blog, I responded to it; if you emailed it to me, I responded to the message. If you did neither of those things, I left you a message on the last post your did publish, so you may have to dig to get my response.
As far as rough draft conferences go, I have either emailed or posted each of you with your individual conference day. If you forget (or never look), the schedule goes like this:
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27: Barnak, Blaney, Casper, Cotts, Cudzewicz, Davenport, Forbes
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29: Perez, Plate, Reel, Singer, Wagner, Feldott
Make sure that you have your rough drafts (at least two pages worth, preferably more) ready to go on your conference day. You only have to show up for class the day your conference is scheduled, and the bibliographies are also due the day of your conference.
If you have any questions, concerns, or confusion, please email me, come see me during my office hours, or leave me a voicemail.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Persuasive Research Piece
This is it—your final piece. To this point, we have worked on a variety of specific skills in the various paragraphs, and then worked on combining them into longer, more complex thoughts in the essays. At this point, it is time to move beyond the individual tools used in writing, and get to the important stuff: making yourself understood, and making yourself persuasive.
Doing all of this isn’t easy; it takes thought, care and energy on your part. The bright side is that generating all of this isn’t as difficult as you might think. When you persuade, you are probably trying to get people to agree with you. Unless you are a habitual liar, you probably really believe in whatever you are trying to convince your subjects about—and that means that you usually really do care about whether or not the believe and agree with you!
Your final assignment puts these concepts into practice. The requirements are as follows:
Standard formatting guidelines apply. As this is your final paper, this should be representative of the absolute best, most polished work you are capable of producing. Grammar, sentence construction and spelling will be more heavily weighted than in past assignments, so be sure to carefully proofread your work! This paper must be a minimum of four full pages long, and must not be longer than eight.
In addition to this packet, you can find more information on argumentative writing in chapter 12 of your textbook.
Your topic is a simple one: I want you to choose something that you think is unfair, and try to convince your audience that A) the situation really is unfair (and explain why and how this is the case) and B) provide a solution to the unfair situation and advocate for that solution to be adopted (and show how that adoption could be achieved). You have two alternatives as far as what sort of unfair situations you can discuss: you can write about a more general, public unfair situation, like immigration, gender inequity in the workplace, or something like that. For example, you could write about how it is unfair that logging companies are attempting to cut down areas of a redwood forest that had previously been designated off limits. You could provide an alternative of creating a sustainable system of forest preserves set aside expressly for the logging industry. The way that this solution could be enacted would be to present the proposal as a bill to congress.
Or, you can choose to write about something specific to yourself—a problem
with another person, a problem within your family, a problem at work or school,
or whatever. An example of this might be that you think that it is unfair that the
boss at your job makes the schedule based on who has worked the most hours last
week. You think that the schedule should be based on seniority—who has been
working at the job the longest. You would present your reasons why a schedule
based on who works the most hours from week to week is unfair, and then show
why a schedule based on seniority would be fairer. You would finish off by
making suggestions on how to correct this unfair situation—in this case, the
solution is (obviously) adopting the new kind of schedule.
As a different slant on this, you can take a more general and traditional tack, and discuss an issue that is of importance to you (and others), and try to convince your audience that your position is the one that should be acted upon or believed. This could be something along the lines of a social or political issue (legalized marijuana, gun control, election reform) or more cultural (exploitation in the media, doping in sports). In this paper, you are presenting an issue that has at least two opposing arguments, both of which may have good points. It is up to you to do a fair and thorough job of exploring and exposing those points. Like the unfair paper, however, you are advocating a position—you must take a stand on one side or the other!
Regardless of which version of the paper you choose to write, you will need to find outside sources and use them properly. This paper calls for a minimum of five sources—make sure that whatever your topic is robust enough to support these five sources! At least two different types of sources must be used (books and websites, magazine articles and interviews, or databases and documentaries, for example). You MAY NOT simply use all of the same kind of source (this is especially true of online materials). Keep in mind that NOT ALL SOURCES ARE CREATED EQUALLY!! Some are more respectable/useful/trustworthy than others, and it is part of your job to make sure that the sources you are using are appropriate for an academic paper. You will be required to properly cite your sources in-text using parenthetical citation, and you will also be required to provide a works cited page in proper MLA format. We will discuss these requirements in class, but it is YOUR responsibility to make sure that you are familiar and comfortable with the MLA citation process. This will be an important component of this assignment, so it is important to do it well.
You need to keep a number of factors in mind as you write this paper. Tone is very important—you may be very angry about the unfair situation (especially if the situation is a personal one), but if your tone comes across as angry, nasty or superior, you are likely to anger and offend your reader! This, of course, makes them much less likely to listen to you or to do what you want them to. You must also remember that you are not the only person in the universe. Just because you think that something seems unfair doesn’t necessarily make it so. If you are writing the paper about the unfair situation, you must remember that there is a difference between “things that are not fair” and “things I don’t like”. Keep in mind that your solutions will likely impact others—if you want your message to be persuasive, you need to come up with solutions that will make those others happy, not just benefit you. If you are writing the position paper, you must remember to give reasonably even coverage to both sides—you must be able to show that you understand both sides of the issue before people will trust your position.
You should also keep the difference between belief and opinion in mind as you work on this paper (we will cover this material in class). This will help you select and refine your topic, as well as make decisions on what sorts of arguments to make, and what evidence to present.
All good persuasion follows the argument/counterargument/concession/rebuttal model. We will be covering this in class, but it is an expected part of this paper! Also we will be discussing the three parts of a traditional argument—pathos, ethos, and logos. Again, regardless of type of paper, you are expected to show an awareness of and facility with these elements. You do NOT need to include one section or paragraph on each of the three elements, but you should be able to include information from all three sections as it is needed.
Regardless of which type of paper you choose to write, keep the situations and solutions, or your position, realistic and reasonable—try to concentrate on solutions that can actually be fixed, and come up with legitimate ways to fix them, and positions that are able to be defended clearly and reasonably.
Unlike the other papers we have worked on, the importance of this paper, combined with the length and preparation time, causes due dates for this paper to be handled a little differently than the other papers we have worked on. This paper will be divided into a number of smaller sections: a topic proposal, an outline, a working bibliography, and a rough draft, as well as the final draft. Put simply, each section is due at the start of the class it is due on, unless I tell you otherwise. If you have the section done when it is due, and it is reasonably complete and accurate, you will receive full credit for that section. If you do not have the section done, or it is obviously incorrect or incomplete, two things will occur: you will receive a zero for that section, and you will continue to receive zeroes for every other section (up to and including the final draft) until you get that section properly completed and turned in to me. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS TO THIS RULE!!! If you are sick, if you are going to be gone, if you are planning on using one of your free absences, you will still need to make arrangements with me concerning the sections of the paper you might be missing. In addition, I WILL NOT be taking the final draft late under any circumstances, to allow sufficient time for grading.
As always, see me with any questions or concerns you may have about this assignment.
Doing all of this isn’t easy; it takes thought, care and energy on your part. The bright side is that generating all of this isn’t as difficult as you might think. When you persuade, you are probably trying to get people to agree with you. Unless you are a habitual liar, you probably really believe in whatever you are trying to convince your subjects about—and that means that you usually really do care about whether or not the believe and agree with you!
Your final assignment puts these concepts into practice. The requirements are as follows:
Standard formatting guidelines apply. As this is your final paper, this should be representative of the absolute best, most polished work you are capable of producing. Grammar, sentence construction and spelling will be more heavily weighted than in past assignments, so be sure to carefully proofread your work! This paper must be a minimum of four full pages long, and must not be longer than eight.
In addition to this packet, you can find more information on argumentative writing in chapter 12 of your textbook.
Your topic is a simple one: I want you to choose something that you think is unfair, and try to convince your audience that A) the situation really is unfair (and explain why and how this is the case) and B) provide a solution to the unfair situation and advocate for that solution to be adopted (and show how that adoption could be achieved). You have two alternatives as far as what sort of unfair situations you can discuss: you can write about a more general, public unfair situation, like immigration, gender inequity in the workplace, or something like that. For example, you could write about how it is unfair that logging companies are attempting to cut down areas of a redwood forest that had previously been designated off limits. You could provide an alternative of creating a sustainable system of forest preserves set aside expressly for the logging industry. The way that this solution could be enacted would be to present the proposal as a bill to congress.
Or, you can choose to write about something specific to yourself—a problem
with another person, a problem within your family, a problem at work or school,
or whatever. An example of this might be that you think that it is unfair that the
boss at your job makes the schedule based on who has worked the most hours last
week. You think that the schedule should be based on seniority—who has been
working at the job the longest. You would present your reasons why a schedule
based on who works the most hours from week to week is unfair, and then show
why a schedule based on seniority would be fairer. You would finish off by
making suggestions on how to correct this unfair situation—in this case, the
solution is (obviously) adopting the new kind of schedule.
As a different slant on this, you can take a more general and traditional tack, and discuss an issue that is of importance to you (and others), and try to convince your audience that your position is the one that should be acted upon or believed. This could be something along the lines of a social or political issue (legalized marijuana, gun control, election reform) or more cultural (exploitation in the media, doping in sports). In this paper, you are presenting an issue that has at least two opposing arguments, both of which may have good points. It is up to you to do a fair and thorough job of exploring and exposing those points. Like the unfair paper, however, you are advocating a position—you must take a stand on one side or the other!
Regardless of which version of the paper you choose to write, you will need to find outside sources and use them properly. This paper calls for a minimum of five sources—make sure that whatever your topic is robust enough to support these five sources! At least two different types of sources must be used (books and websites, magazine articles and interviews, or databases and documentaries, for example). You MAY NOT simply use all of the same kind of source (this is especially true of online materials). Keep in mind that NOT ALL SOURCES ARE CREATED EQUALLY!! Some are more respectable/useful/trustworthy than others, and it is part of your job to make sure that the sources you are using are appropriate for an academic paper. You will be required to properly cite your sources in-text using parenthetical citation, and you will also be required to provide a works cited page in proper MLA format. We will discuss these requirements in class, but it is YOUR responsibility to make sure that you are familiar and comfortable with the MLA citation process. This will be an important component of this assignment, so it is important to do it well.
You need to keep a number of factors in mind as you write this paper. Tone is very important—you may be very angry about the unfair situation (especially if the situation is a personal one), but if your tone comes across as angry, nasty or superior, you are likely to anger and offend your reader! This, of course, makes them much less likely to listen to you or to do what you want them to. You must also remember that you are not the only person in the universe. Just because you think that something seems unfair doesn’t necessarily make it so. If you are writing the paper about the unfair situation, you must remember that there is a difference between “things that are not fair” and “things I don’t like”. Keep in mind that your solutions will likely impact others—if you want your message to be persuasive, you need to come up with solutions that will make those others happy, not just benefit you. If you are writing the position paper, you must remember to give reasonably even coverage to both sides—you must be able to show that you understand both sides of the issue before people will trust your position.
You should also keep the difference between belief and opinion in mind as you work on this paper (we will cover this material in class). This will help you select and refine your topic, as well as make decisions on what sorts of arguments to make, and what evidence to present.
All good persuasion follows the argument/counterargument/concession/rebuttal model. We will be covering this in class, but it is an expected part of this paper! Also we will be discussing the three parts of a traditional argument—pathos, ethos, and logos. Again, regardless of type of paper, you are expected to show an awareness of and facility with these elements. You do NOT need to include one section or paragraph on each of the three elements, but you should be able to include information from all three sections as it is needed.
Regardless of which type of paper you choose to write, keep the situations and solutions, or your position, realistic and reasonable—try to concentrate on solutions that can actually be fixed, and come up with legitimate ways to fix them, and positions that are able to be defended clearly and reasonably.
Unlike the other papers we have worked on, the importance of this paper, combined with the length and preparation time, causes due dates for this paper to be handled a little differently than the other papers we have worked on. This paper will be divided into a number of smaller sections: a topic proposal, an outline, a working bibliography, and a rough draft, as well as the final draft. Put simply, each section is due at the start of the class it is due on, unless I tell you otherwise. If you have the section done when it is due, and it is reasonably complete and accurate, you will receive full credit for that section. If you do not have the section done, or it is obviously incorrect or incomplete, two things will occur: you will receive a zero for that section, and you will continue to receive zeroes for every other section (up to and including the final draft) until you get that section properly completed and turned in to me. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS TO THIS RULE!!! If you are sick, if you are going to be gone, if you are planning on using one of your free absences, you will still need to make arrangements with me concerning the sections of the paper you might be missing. In addition, I WILL NOT be taking the final draft late under any circumstances, to allow sufficient time for grading.
As always, see me with any questions or concerns you may have about this assignment.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Entrance Essay/Financial Aid Piece
Persuasive, argumentative writing is some of the most important communication that a person can do. It is also some of the most difficult. We will begin our practice in this area by working on a project that many of you can, or will eventually, relate to: the college entrance essay.
If you have ever applied to a four-year college for admission, you know that they often ask you to include a brief essay explaining why you want to enroll. Even if you have no desire to enroll in a four-year school, the practice of working on a short, controlled persuasive piece can be very helpful. Here is what you need to know to successfully complete your essay:
There are three ways you can complete this assignment: you write your entrance essay to either a college you really do want to go to (you can in fact make this essay a part of your application materials) or you can choose a school some other way: pick your “dream school”, a school you have always been interested in, choose at random, whatever you would like. Alternatively, if you are not planning on transferring to another school, or have already been accepted, or simply don’t know what school you would like to attend, you may instead write a letter applying for financial aid or a scholarship. Many of these are tailored to a specific school, but many can be used wherever you eventually decide to attend. There are even scholarships and financial aid packages available for community colleges like Waubonsee, so you can use this to aid you in your current studies.
You will need to do some research on your chosen school. The more you know about your chosen school, the better a job you will be able to do of convincing the admissions board that you are a worthwhile and serious applicant. This means knowing things like where the school is located, what sorts of strong programs it has, what sorts of things it is famous for, and so on. We will have class time to let you research your school but you may need to work on your own as well.
If you choose to work on a real application essay, you are welcome to use the essay (if any) included with the application materials. If your school does not include an essay, or if you are not really planning on applying, use this essay prompt:
Why do you want to enroll in (college name)? What qualities do you have that will make you successful here? What sorts of experiences have you had that will make you a valuable part of the college community? What are your ultimate goals for yourself and your education?
If you choose to work on a scholarship, you will find that the vast majority of them include some sort of statement or essay prompt—again, I want a copy if you use an existing prompt. If you cannot find a prompt for your particular scholarship, use the following generic prompt:
Why are you deserving of this financial assistance? How will you use this assistance to achieve your goals? What do you want to do with your education in the long run? How will you use this assistance to give back to the wider community?
You need to make sure that you consider the audience you are writing to. What are they interested in hearing about? What sort of language, vocabulary, and tone do they expect from you? What sorts of things do they already know, and what sorts of things do you need to explain to them?
You will also need to be able to give the folks who will see your essay some information and background—both about yourself, and about what you know about them. You will want to include information about your educational and working background, your extracurricular activities, hobbies, skills, and personal qualities that you think will make you successful at the school (or with the scholarship). You will also want to demonstrate that you know about them—that you have done your homework, take the opportunity seriously, and have taken steps to make sure that you will be a good fit with the college, and that you will be successful there (or will be successful through receiving the scholarship).
You will need to make use of a number of different techniques we have worked on throughout the class to write a successful essay: you may need to define and explain things, to give example, to use narrative to explain what you have done or want to do, you may even need to compare your abilities or backgrounds to the admissions requirements of the school.
Whether this is a real letter or not, you must be honest in your essay—this is really you who is applying to this school! There is one exception to this: if you do decide to apply to a dream school, and this school is one that you would normally not be allowed to attend for whatever reason (financial, distance, a school that specializes in something you have no background in, or any other admissions criteria that you don’t/can’t meet for whatever reason) you may alter your personal information to the point that it allows you to be a potential candidate.
Obviously, the essay may be very different depending on the particular school and what they are looking for. If you are writing a real application essay, the requirement of the school take precedence over the requirements of this assignment. However, there are a few rules you do need to follow—if these don’t mix with the real-life essay, you will need to create an alternate, “class version” of the essay. This essay must be a minimum of two full pages. It must follow all of the formatting guidelines discussed in class. If the real entrance essay is extremely different than the imaginary essay prompt given above, you will need to see me to make sure that the essay is acceptable for use in this assignment.
As always, see me if you have any questions about this assignment.
If you have ever applied to a four-year college for admission, you know that they often ask you to include a brief essay explaining why you want to enroll. Even if you have no desire to enroll in a four-year school, the practice of working on a short, controlled persuasive piece can be very helpful. Here is what you need to know to successfully complete your essay:
There are three ways you can complete this assignment: you write your entrance essay to either a college you really do want to go to (you can in fact make this essay a part of your application materials) or you can choose a school some other way: pick your “dream school”, a school you have always been interested in, choose at random, whatever you would like. Alternatively, if you are not planning on transferring to another school, or have already been accepted, or simply don’t know what school you would like to attend, you may instead write a letter applying for financial aid or a scholarship. Many of these are tailored to a specific school, but many can be used wherever you eventually decide to attend. There are even scholarships and financial aid packages available for community colleges like Waubonsee, so you can use this to aid you in your current studies.
You will need to do some research on your chosen school. The more you know about your chosen school, the better a job you will be able to do of convincing the admissions board that you are a worthwhile and serious applicant. This means knowing things like where the school is located, what sorts of strong programs it has, what sorts of things it is famous for, and so on. We will have class time to let you research your school but you may need to work on your own as well.
If you choose to work on a real application essay, you are welcome to use the essay (if any) included with the application materials. If your school does not include an essay, or if you are not really planning on applying, use this essay prompt:
Why do you want to enroll in (college name)? What qualities do you have that will make you successful here? What sorts of experiences have you had that will make you a valuable part of the college community? What are your ultimate goals for yourself and your education?
If you choose to work on a scholarship, you will find that the vast majority of them include some sort of statement or essay prompt—again, I want a copy if you use an existing prompt. If you cannot find a prompt for your particular scholarship, use the following generic prompt:
Why are you deserving of this financial assistance? How will you use this assistance to achieve your goals? What do you want to do with your education in the long run? How will you use this assistance to give back to the wider community?
You need to make sure that you consider the audience you are writing to. What are they interested in hearing about? What sort of language, vocabulary, and tone do they expect from you? What sorts of things do they already know, and what sorts of things do you need to explain to them?
You will also need to be able to give the folks who will see your essay some information and background—both about yourself, and about what you know about them. You will want to include information about your educational and working background, your extracurricular activities, hobbies, skills, and personal qualities that you think will make you successful at the school (or with the scholarship). You will also want to demonstrate that you know about them—that you have done your homework, take the opportunity seriously, and have taken steps to make sure that you will be a good fit with the college, and that you will be successful there (or will be successful through receiving the scholarship).
You will need to make use of a number of different techniques we have worked on throughout the class to write a successful essay: you may need to define and explain things, to give example, to use narrative to explain what you have done or want to do, you may even need to compare your abilities or backgrounds to the admissions requirements of the school.
Whether this is a real letter or not, you must be honest in your essay—this is really you who is applying to this school! There is one exception to this: if you do decide to apply to a dream school, and this school is one that you would normally not be allowed to attend for whatever reason (financial, distance, a school that specializes in something you have no background in, or any other admissions criteria that you don’t/can’t meet for whatever reason) you may alter your personal information to the point that it allows you to be a potential candidate.
Obviously, the essay may be very different depending on the particular school and what they are looking for. If you are writing a real application essay, the requirement of the school take precedence over the requirements of this assignment. However, there are a few rules you do need to follow—if these don’t mix with the real-life essay, you will need to create an alternate, “class version” of the essay. This essay must be a minimum of two full pages. It must follow all of the formatting guidelines discussed in class. If the real entrance essay is extremely different than the imaginary essay prompt given above, you will need to see me to make sure that the essay is acceptable for use in this assignment.
As always, see me if you have any questions about this assignment.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Narrative rough draft assignment
Hey all,
As we roll on with the narrative paper, it seems like most of you have a good handle on things--the average length of a rough draft on Thursday was three to four pages, and the stories have been quite good. Excellent work so far! I want you all to have the opportunity to see the good work that your classmates are doing, as well as getting the chance to see how other writers struggle with the same sorts of writing issues that you do. As such, here is your homework for the weekend:
1) Post your rough draft on your blog. If you have already done so, but have a newer draft, you can post that as well.
2) Visit the blogs of at least two classmates, read their rough drafts, and post comments about them. these comments should be reasonably substantial--don't just say "it was great!" Talk about specific things that the author did well, or that need work. By doing this, you not only give the author some specific, useful feedback, but you also engage your own mind in thinking about the challenges of the assignment--you can learn from the mistakes and successes of others, and use them in your own narrative.
As always, contact me with questions or concerns--the final draft of the narrative is due on Tuesday!
As we roll on with the narrative paper, it seems like most of you have a good handle on things--the average length of a rough draft on Thursday was three to four pages, and the stories have been quite good. Excellent work so far! I want you all to have the opportunity to see the good work that your classmates are doing, as well as getting the chance to see how other writers struggle with the same sorts of writing issues that you do. As such, here is your homework for the weekend:
1) Post your rough draft on your blog. If you have already done so, but have a newer draft, you can post that as well.
2) Visit the blogs of at least two classmates, read their rough drafts, and post comments about them. these comments should be reasonably substantial--don't just say "it was great!" Talk about specific things that the author did well, or that need work. By doing this, you not only give the author some specific, useful feedback, but you also engage your own mind in thinking about the challenges of the assignment--you can learn from the mistakes and successes of others, and use them in your own narrative.
As always, contact me with questions or concerns--the final draft of the narrative is due on Tuesday!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Narrative Paper
When most people think of narratives, they think of stories. We are surrounded by narratives—the television shows and movies that we watch, the books that we read, even sporting events and advertising make heavy use of narrative structure to make their products appealing to us.
Most students do not see the place that narrative has in other kinds of writing, however. Any time you use an example, any time you give details, any time you structure a piece of writing to move from background information to a major revelation, you are using the ideas of narrative. Being able to develop these skills allows you to more expertly develop many of the elements that make any kind of writing effective: structure and organization, description, pacing, tone, and development.
Your job for this assignment will be to create a narrative of your own. You will have the option to choose between fiction (entirely imaginary) and nonfiction (entirely truthful and based on real events) narratives, and from there, you will have other options. I realize that this assignment can be a challenge, as many students do not consider themselves to be able storytellers. However, the specifics of the assignment should allow all students to successfully create a narrative.
The basic guidelines for this assignment are as follows:
3-10 pages, following all formatting guidelines from the style sheet.
You should read the section on narrative writing that begins on page 141 of your textbook. We will also cover these materials extensively in class.
You may choose to write either a nonfiction narrative or a fictional narrative.
If you choose nonfiction, you must choose a story that can be tied to a particular theme—a central emotion, idea, or lesson that will be the basis for the story. You will need to include a short paragraph at the beginning of the piece explaining what your theme is. You are allowed to use “I” for this type of narrative. Also be aware that it is possible to embellish and build upon a real-life story and add new ideas—this will change the narrative into one of fiction, however.
If you choose a fictional narrative, you will need to choose a particular genre—a category of story, like Western, mystery, fairy tale, whatever. You will need to include a brief paragraph at the beginning of the piece explaining what genre you have selected. It is possible to mix multiple genres for this piece, but if you do so, you will need to explain your choices (and list the genres) in your prefatory piece. While you are welcome to adapt or outright steal elements from other narratives, it is not acceptable to simply plagiarize an existing narrative. While individual elements may be recycled, this should be YOUR story—it must be clearly your own work. If you are unsure of what this entails, please see me.
You will need to make use of concepts we have already worked on in class in terms of defining, describing, and explaining things as your narrative progresses.
Narratives are much more open to stylistic play than other forms of writing. It is possible, for example, to include fragmented sentences that would be unacceptable in a more formal paper in a story, particularly if you are trying achieve a certain effect, or mimic a certain speech pattern. You are also allowed to use dialogue (though be aware that extensive use of dialogue will require the adjustment of the overall page length of the assignment). Regardless of the particular narrative you are working with, however, you will need to follow the basic rules of narrative structure (organization and structure, plot elements character, etc.) that we will cover in class. If you have particular concerns or goals for your narrative that you believe may need special attention, please see me.
Most students do not see the place that narrative has in other kinds of writing, however. Any time you use an example, any time you give details, any time you structure a piece of writing to move from background information to a major revelation, you are using the ideas of narrative. Being able to develop these skills allows you to more expertly develop many of the elements that make any kind of writing effective: structure and organization, description, pacing, tone, and development.
Your job for this assignment will be to create a narrative of your own. You will have the option to choose between fiction (entirely imaginary) and nonfiction (entirely truthful and based on real events) narratives, and from there, you will have other options. I realize that this assignment can be a challenge, as many students do not consider themselves to be able storytellers. However, the specifics of the assignment should allow all students to successfully create a narrative.
The basic guidelines for this assignment are as follows:
3-10 pages, following all formatting guidelines from the style sheet.
You should read the section on narrative writing that begins on page 141 of your textbook. We will also cover these materials extensively in class.
You may choose to write either a nonfiction narrative or a fictional narrative.
If you choose nonfiction, you must choose a story that can be tied to a particular theme—a central emotion, idea, or lesson that will be the basis for the story. You will need to include a short paragraph at the beginning of the piece explaining what your theme is. You are allowed to use “I” for this type of narrative. Also be aware that it is possible to embellish and build upon a real-life story and add new ideas—this will change the narrative into one of fiction, however.
If you choose a fictional narrative, you will need to choose a particular genre—a category of story, like Western, mystery, fairy tale, whatever. You will need to include a brief paragraph at the beginning of the piece explaining what genre you have selected. It is possible to mix multiple genres for this piece, but if you do so, you will need to explain your choices (and list the genres) in your prefatory piece. While you are welcome to adapt or outright steal elements from other narratives, it is not acceptable to simply plagiarize an existing narrative. While individual elements may be recycled, this should be YOUR story—it must be clearly your own work. If you are unsure of what this entails, please see me.
You will need to make use of concepts we have already worked on in class in terms of defining, describing, and explaining things as your narrative progresses.
Narratives are much more open to stylistic play than other forms of writing. It is possible, for example, to include fragmented sentences that would be unacceptable in a more formal paper in a story, particularly if you are trying achieve a certain effect, or mimic a certain speech pattern. You are also allowed to use dialogue (though be aware that extensive use of dialogue will require the adjustment of the overall page length of the assignment). Regardless of the particular narrative you are working with, however, you will need to follow the basic rules of narrative structure (organization and structure, plot elements character, etc.) that we will cover in class. If you have particular concerns or goals for your narrative that you believe may need special attention, please see me.
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