Matt King



English 260: Advanced Composition

Fall 2013

• Policy Statement – 2

• Schedule – 5

• Assignments – 7

English 260: Advanced Composition

Fall 2013

Professor: Matt King

Email: mrking@sbu.edu

Phone: 716.375.2457

Office Hours: MW 2:30-4:00, and by appointment

Office Location: Plassmann D6

Class Website:

Class Texts

- Sharon Crowley and Michael Stancliff, Critical Situations. ISBN 0321246535.

Program Objectives

Outcome 1:  The student is able to evaluate literary works in terms of their background, structure, and meaning.

Outcome 2:  The student is able to appraise central elements of literary language.

Outcome 3:  The student is able to discuss relationships between literature and media.

Course Description

This course approaches advanced composition as training for professional contexts and frames writing as a rhetorical enterprise, one that involves a capacity to read and respond to singular rhetorical situations. Our analysis and production of texts will thus involve an attention to exigency, context, and audience. Given the nature of professional writing, our work will emphasize research, analysis, and argument as well as multimedia production and collaboration. Students will have the opportunity to investigate and write about topics of personal and professional interest and also to develop professional materials. The class will be framed in terms of “community,” a term that will help us better understand both how rhetoric and academic disciplines work.

Course goals:

• To develop a productive and effective writing process that focuses on production of text, multiple drafts, revision strategies, and editing and proofreading strategies;

• To effectively and productively critique your own work and that of your peers;

• To research communities and issues relevant to you and your field, analyze a range of perspectives responding to these issues, and offer your own argument in response;

• To write in different media and work collaboratively;

• To produce effective professional materials;

• To produce text that meets accepted standards and conventions for academic and professional writing.

These course goals do not correspond to specific program objectives, but they do address writing concerns relevant to English majors and to students from across the university.

Coursework and Grading

You will be graded on the following assignments this term:

• Paper 1.1 (advisory grade)

• Paper 1.2 15%

• Paper 2.1 5%

• Paper 2.2 15%

• Paper 3.1 5%

• Paper 3.2 15%

• Paper 4.1 5%

• Paper 4.2 15%

• Short Assignments 15%

• Group Project 10%

+/- Grades. Plus and minus grades will be used in awarding final grades for this course. The letter-to-percentage conversion is given below.

Paper Grades

A+ = 98.5  A = 95   A- = 91.5

B+ = 88.5  B = 85   B- = 81.5

C+ = 78.5  C = 75   C- = 71.5

D+ = 68.5  D = 65   D- = 61.5

F = 55

Semester Average

A = 93-100 A- = 90-93

B+ = 87-90 B = 83-87 B- = 80-83

C+ = 77-80 C = 73-77 C- = 70-73

D+ = 67-70 D = 63-67 D- = 60-63

F = Less than 60

Peer review. Each major assignment will include a peer review draft that will be shared in class and commented upon by your classmates. If you do not complete a peer review in or outside of class, your .1 draft (the first submission to me) will be marked down a letter grade. If you are absent on the day of a peer review, you can make it up outside of class, and I can help coordinate this if necessary.

Late Work.  I tend to be pretty flexible concerning late work as long as you let me know ahead of time. I would rather you spend the time you need to in order to succeed with your writing, and if you need an extra day or two beyond the deadline to achieve that, I would rather you take advantage of that time. That being said, excessive or unexcused late work will not be acceptable, and I reserve the right to penalize late work in such circumstances (generally, such penalties will be a letter grade for every day an assignment is late). If circumstances prevent you from being able to submit an assignment on time, you should discuss the situation with me ahead of time.

Attendance/Tardiness.  You should arrive to class on time with all assigned readings and papers for the day completed. Every absence after 3 will result in a 1/3 letter grade deduction from the final grade. As a common courtesy to all, you should not be late to class. For every 3 instances of tardiness, you will incur 1 absence. If you arrive more than 10 minutes late to class, you will be marked as absent. Coming unprepared to class (forgetting textbooks, notebooks, workshop materials, etc.) can also result in an absence. If your attendance is influenced by hospitalization, family emergencies, or religious holidays, please contact me as soon as possible. Please note that you are responsible for making up any work that was missed during your absence from class.

Scholastic Honesty

One goal of this course is developing an understanding for the responsible use of other people’s words and ideas. Plagiarism, or the irresponsible use of these words or ideas, will result in anything from a failing grade for a particular paper to a failing grade for the course, or university discipline, which may mean more severe ramifications, up to and including expulsion. A list of unacceptable practices, penalties to be assigned, and procedures to be followed in prosecuting cases of alleged academic dishonesty may be found in the Student Handbook.

Plassmann Writing Center

Revising and responding to feedback will be an invaluable and necessary part of your development as a writer this semester. Toward this end, you are strongly encouraged to visit me during office hours, and you are also strongly encouraged to visit the Writing Center in the basement of Plassmann Hall (6A). There is a sign-up sheet on the door of the Center and, while occasional walk-in appointments may be available, you will likely want to sign up for an appointment ahead of time. You must drop off a copy of your essay in advance or bring it with you when you come to your appointment. You are welcome to attend the Writing Center more than once for any assignment.

Email

Email will serve as an official means of communication for this class. You are therefore required to check the email account you have registered with the university regularly. Please feel free to email me with your questions and concerns. It may take me up to two days to respond, so please do not expect an immediate response. If your question is a lengthy one (about writing, etc.), I may ask you to visit me during office hours instead of responding to you on email.

Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities who believe that they may need accommodations in this class are encouraged to contact the Disability Support Services Office, Doyle Room 26, at 375-2066 as soon as possible to better ensure that such accommodations are implemented in a timely fashion. Documentation from this office is required before accommodations can be made.

Schedule

Critical Situations = CS

|Date |Major Due Dates; Homework (due day listed); In class |

|  |  |

|M 8/26 |Introduction to Course |

|W 8/28 |Read CS Chs. 1-2 |

|F 8/30 |Proposal Assignment due |

|M 9/2 |RS 1 due; Discuss RS sample |

|W 9/4 |Read CS Chs. 3-4; Discuss Bonaventure article |

|F 9/6 |RS 2 & 3 due |

|M 9/9 |RS 4 & 5 due; Discuss article |

|W 9/11 |Read Wallace |

|F 9/13 |Annotated Bibliography due |

|M 9/16 |Paper 1 Peer Review Draft due for peer reviews in class |

|W 9/18 |Paper 1.1 due |

|F 9/20 |Read Reid, Bernstein, Pamela, Prendergast on thesis statements, grammar, flow |

|M 9/23 |Conferences |

|W 9/25 |Paper 1.2 due |

|F 9/27 |Read CS Chs. 5-6; Discuss Obama speech |

|M 9/30 |RA 1 due; Discuss ideology questions |

|W 10/2 |Read CS Chs. 7-8; Discuss sample readings |

|F 10/4 |RA 2 due |

|M 10/7 |RA 3 due; Revision exercise |

|W 10/9 |Paper 2 Peer Review Draft due |

|F 10/11 |Paper 2.1 due |

|M 10/14 |Midterm Break |

|W 10/16 |Conferences |

|F 10/18 |Conferences |

|M 10/21 |Paper 2.2 due |

|W 10/23 |Argument Invention due; Discuss APA sample |

|F 10/25 |Look over APA materials, read about memos; Discuss Brooks |

|M 10/28 |Paper 3 Rough Draft due (bring to class) |

|W 10/30 |Paper 3 Peer Review Draft due; Peer reviews |

|F 11/1 |Paper 3.1 due |

|M 11/4 |Conferences |

|W 11/6 |Introduce final assignments |

|F 11/8 |Paper 3.2 due |

|M 11/11 |Read Bogost, Inform7 materials |

|W 11/13 |Read BWH handouts, blog posts on CVs (1 & 2), Purdue OWL on Job Letters and Resumes (all sections), and expert advice; Discuss |

| |job postings 1 and 2 |

|F 11/15 |Resume and Cover Letter drafts due; Paper 4 workshop |

|M 11/18 |Work on Procedural Authorship project |

|W 11/20 |Paper 4 Peer Review draft due; Peer reviews |

|F 11/22 |Conferences (bring 4.1) |

|M 11/25 |Procedural Authorship draft due for peer review in class |

|M 12/2 |Paper 4.2 due |

|W 12/4 |Workshop PA project |

|F 12/6 |Procedural Authorship project due |

Proposal Assignment

This semester, you will be developing research, analysis, and argumentation skills by focusing on a specific community. For our purposes, a community is a collection of people who share particular commitments, attitudes, values, or beliefs and who also engage in particular social practices. Our goal in studying these communities will be to better understand how various commitments and social practices make available different modes of persuasion, argumentation, and identification. In other words, we want to get a sense for how different communities encourage and call for different types of engagement with other people and the world around us.

As the semester develops, we will take different approaches to studying our communities. In the first unit, you will focus on what defines your chosen community; in the second unit, you will analyze texts produced by your community; in the third unit, you will make an argument about your community or in response to an issue relevant to your community. To prepare for these assignments, your first task will be proposing a community to study. In terms of criteria, the community you choose does not have to be one to which you belong, but it should be one that is interesting and relevant to you in some way; also, since we will primarily be studying texts, it is important that members of your chosen community produce texts that make arguments (articles, books, speeches, pamphlets, advertisements, websites, videos, etc.) and that other people outside of the community make arguments about it; finally, it will be important that your community engages with and/or responds to issues/critical situations that have a broader social significance.

For the Proposal Assignment, you will submit a one-page paper (single-spaced, 12 pt font, 1″ margins) that offers an overview of your proposed community. The paper should be emailed to me before class starts on Friday, and you should also have access to your paper in class that day. Your paper should address the following prompts:

– Who belongs to/participates in this community? You can identify people through general descriptions and point to specific members who play an important role in the community.

– What locations, places, and spaces help define and organize the community? Similarly, are there specific times or events that have helped to define and organize the community?

– What issues and critical situations are important to this community? Some of these might not be relevant to the public generally, but at least some of them should be.

– What texts produced by the community help it to define and organize itself? You can identify texts through general descriptions and/or point to specific texts.

– Explain your own interest in/relation to this community.

– At the end of your paper, include a list of search terms that can help you to research and locate articles written about this community in various publications (newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc.).

Like all short papers for this class, the Proposal Assignment will be given a completion grade. If your submission does not meet the requirements, I will ask you to revise it and submit it again. Otherwise, you will receive full credit for completing the assignment.

Research Summaries

These short assignments each focus on a single article that you discover through your research. The article should make an argument about your community. The main goal of the Research Summary is to summarize the various components of the author’s argument and to show how these pieces fit together. This paper can also serve as an opportunity to begin developing a conceptual map of your community and the conversation surrounding it with reference to stasis theory and the notion of kairos.

Overview and Formatting: Write a one-page paper summarizing a specific source you discovered in your research. Put your name and the name of the assignment at the top of the page. Just below this, give a full MLA citation of the article you’re summarizing. After the citation, skip a line and begin your summary. For the paper overall, set the margins at 1 inch, spacing at single, and font at 12 pt. Do not exceed a page in length. You should submit these papers to me via email as .doc or .rtf attachments. You should also bring either a hard copy or an electronic copy of these with you to class the day they are due.

Specifics: The first section of your summary (probably one or two paragraphs) should focus on the main argument(s) made in the article. You should identify the main claim(s) and the reasons and evidence supporting these claims, showing how these various pieces fit together. If the author addresses any counterarguments, identify these as well. Your summary should include quotes from the article to help clarify and support your account of the argument. Do not offer your own comments, opinions, or arguments about what the text says, and do not offer a rhetorical analysis of the writing. Stick to content: what is the author saying in this text? What position is s/he advocating?

The second section should situate this argument within the larger conversation about your community. There are a few ways you can do this. First, you can draw on stasis theory to identify the type of argument that the author makes, that is, whether it responds to questions of conjecture, definition, value, or policy (the argument may address multiple categories). This will help you compare this particular argument to other arguments made about the community. Second, you can draw on the notion of kairos to reflect on how the argument responds to a specific event or context. This will help you identify the argument’s relationship to the chronology of the community’s development over time. Finally, you can reflect on the author’s commitments and their relationship to a specific community or communities. The author might be a member of the community you are studying, or they might represent a different community. Either way, reflecting on the author’s commitments will help you frame their perspective on the community you are studying. All of this information will help you show how various articles and arguments intersect and diverge when you get to Paper 1.

Like all short assignments for this class, Research Summaries will only be given a completion grade. If your submission does not meet the assignment requirements, I will ask you to revise it and submit it again. Otherwise, you will receive full credit for completing the assignment.

Annotated Bibliography

This assignment is designed to help you organize your research as you prepare for Paper 1. As you are researching your community, you will likely find some articles and sources that are mainly informative and others that make an argument and advocate for a particular position. While your Research Summaries should focus on articles that make arguments, you are welcome to include sources that are primarily informative in your annotated bibliographies, as both informative and argumentative sources will ultimately help you write Paper 1. Your bibliography should include at least four sources that make an argument about your community. Also, our understanding of “sources” here can be quite broad. Our main emphasis will be on articles, but you can also examine other kinds of texts – anything that can help you gain insight about your community.

Overview and Formatting: There is not a specific page length requirement for this assignment, but your bibliography should include at least ten entries (you are welcome to include as many sources as you want and as you expect will help you in writing Paper 1). Each entry should begin with a citation of the source in MLA format. After the citation, skip a line before including your annotations. You should arrange your entries either in alphabetical order or in the order of their importance for your project (whichever is most helpful for you). You should put your name and the title of the assignment at the top of the first page. You should email the assignment to me as a .doc or .rtf attachment before class starts on September 15, and you should also bring a hard copy or an electronic copy with you to class that day.

Specifics: Your annotations should be 1-2 paragraphs, and they should focus on concisely summarizing the main point(s) of the source and reflecting on its use for your understanding of the community. If the source is argumentative, you should briefly outline the main argument of the article. If the source is informative, you should outline the main information provided by the article. In addition to this overview of the source’s main point(s), you can also use the annotations as a place to remind yourself about other helpful information from the article. For example, if the article offers helpful background information or quotes, you can make a note of this. If the article helps you map the conversation around your controversy using stasis theory or kairos, you might make a note of this as well. The goal of the annotated bibliography is to help you prepare for Paper 1 and to demonstrate that your understanding of your community is broad and thorough. (See the Purdue OWL for more information on annotated bibliographies.)

The Annotated Bibliography will only be given a completion grade. If your submission does not meet the assignment requirements, I will ask you to revise it and submit it again. Otherwise, you will receive full credit for completing the assignment.

Paper 1

Your purpose in the essay is to examine how your chosen community works by identifying and analyzing the people, places, events, social practices, and issues that shape the community and then mapping out the various arguments made about the community. You should begin by introducing your community and explaining its relationship and relevance to the larger public sphere. After the introduction, your paper should achieve three things (how you organize these three parts is up to you):

1) You should identify the people, places, events, social practices, and/or issues that help the community define and organize itself. You should also analyze these various aspects of the community. That is, rather than simply listing this information, you should also consider what this teaches us about the community: what attitudes, values, beliefs, commitments, assumptions, trained incapacities, etc., do these people, places, events, social practices, and issues embody? How would you describe the broader orientation of the community based on these things? Also, which people, places, events, social practices, or issues are most representative of this broader orientation? Are any of these things in tension with the broader orientation of the community? For this section, you can draw on the general overview that you wrote for the Proposal Assignment, although your knowledge of the community at this point should be more thorough, and there should also be a greater emphasis on analysis here.

2) You should map the relationship between various arguments that have been made about the community. These arguments might address the community’s effects and impact on the world, how the community should be defined or evaluated, or what the community should become or do in the future. You should cover at least three arguments in depth. You should draw on stasis theory to show how these various positions intersect and diverge, where they agree and disagree. For this section, you can draw on your Research Summaries.

3) You should compare your findings from each of these two steps. How does your analysis of the people, places, events, social practices, and issues of the community match up against the arguments made about it? Does your analysis suggest that any of these arguments are more or less accurate? Do any of the arguments reveal anything about the community’s larger orientation that you hadn’t noted before? What do you learn about the community by comparing its constituent parts with the arguments made about it?

This paper should be approximately 7-10 pages (1” margins, 12 pt font, double-spaced), and it should include MLA citations as needed, both in-text and on a works cited page at the end of the paper.

Paper 1 Peer Review

In class today, we will conduct peer reviews of Paper 1. As you review a classmate’s paper, write your responses to the following questions and prompts on the paper itself, on a separate sheet of paper, or in an email to your partner (you and your partner should decide which is best for you). Keep in mind that you will need to get this feedback to me either electronically or on paper. Read over the following prompts before reading your partner’s paper so that you have a clear sense for what you will be addressing. Afterwards, discuss your comments.

1. Before reading your partner’s paper, let each other know if you have any particular questions or concerns about your papers. If your partner has any specific questions or concerns, be sure to address these in your written comments.

2. Last week, we discussed different organizational principles. Make an outline that charts the organizational principles your partner uses. How does your partner divide their paper into different sections and subsections? How does your partner transition between and guide you through these sections and subsections? Do you have any suggestions for how your partner could improve the overall arrangement itself or the way they guide you through it?

3. In terms of content, keep in mind that our goal is not simply to report our research and list the important information related to our communities but rather to analyze our communities and the conversations around them. So, the main question here is, are there opportunities for your partner to incorporate the main terms and concepts we’ve discussed in class? When your partner discusses arguments, do they show how different pieces of the argument (claims, reasons and evidence, etc.) fit together? Do they use stasis theory to help identify types of arguments and to show the relationships between various arguments, where people agree and disagree? Do they use the notion of kairos to show how arguments respond to specific contexts or events, or showing how the conversation has shifted over time? When your partner discusses people, places, events, social practices, and issues, do they explain what these teach us about the attitudes, commitments, values, beliefs, and orientation of the community? Again, what advice would you offer to your partner for them to more thoroughly, accurately, or effectively incorporate these concepts in their paper?

4. Identify three non-consecutive sentences from your partner’s paper that confused you in some way, and note where they appear in the paper.  Try to explain what confused you, and offer suggestions for clarifying the points made in these sentences.

5. What is the most effective part of the paper? What do you like most about it? What is most in need of improvement?

Rhetorical Analyses

These short assignments each focus on a single text related to the community you have been studying. For at least two of the RAs, the text should be produced by a member of the community. Each text should also make an argument or have a specific purpose, for part of your analysis will involve assessing the effectiveness of the text’s efforts toward achieving this purpose. You will need to analyze at least two texts for Paper 2, and you can consider either or both of these texts in these papers. In other words, RA1/2/3 might focus on different aspects of the same text, or they might each consider a different text. The main goal is to identify rhetorical strategies from the texts and analyze their effectiveness.

Overview and Formatting: Write a one-page paper (single-spaced, 1″ margins, 12 pt font) rhetorically analyzing a single text. Put your name and the name of the assignment at the top of the page. Include a citation of the text before your analysis.

Specifics: The first section of your analysis should focus on the main argument or purpose of the text. If there is an argument, identify the main claim(s) and the reasons and evidence supporting these claims, showing how these various pieces fit together. If the text does not make a specific argument, identify its specific purpose(s). The second section will focus on rhetorical analysis. Instead of focusing on what the argument is, here you will focus on how the author (whether or not this is one specific individual) achieves their purpose or makes the argument persuasive. This will involve identifying the author’s rhetorical strategies and analyzing their effectiveness. As you offer your analysis, do not offer your own opinions about the article or the author. RA1 and RA2 should correspond to different readings from Critical Situations as noted below.

RA1: Commonplaces, Ideology, and Ethos. RA1 should correspond to the readings from CS Ch. 5 and Ch. 6. You should identify parts of the article that appeal to commonplaces, embody a particular ideology, and make appeals to the author’s character and credibility.

RA2: Logos and Pathos. RA2 should correspond to the readings from Critical Situations Ch. 7 and Ch. 8. That is, you should identify parts of the article that that appeal to logic and reasoning and that appeal to values and emotions.

For RA3, you are welcome to address any rhetorical appeals, but you should focus on a text that incorporates images, video, and/or audio. This could be an advertisement, a PSA, a news clip, an interview, a publicity photo, or anything else along these lines.

In terms of identifying examples from texts, you might focus on words (phrases, sentences, or sections), images, audio, or design. For each example, you should identify what sort of appeal it makes and how the appeal works. You should identify at least 2-4 examples from the text for each analysis. You should also analyze each appeal in terms of its effectiveness. How will the appeal be persuasive (or not) for different stakeholders in the conversation? Do these strategies appeal to the assumptions, values, and commitments of the community? How will the text affect different types of audiences in different ways?

Paper 2

Your purpose in this 4-6 page essay (double-spaced, 1″ margins, 12 pt font) is to rhetorically analyze different texts produced by your community and perhaps texts produced outside of the community that offer a helpful point of comparison. For our purposes, a “text” can be loosely defined as any persuasive effort that can be interpreted and analyzed. A text may be a print article (such as a newspaper editorial), but it may also be a blog entry, a video, a commercial, an image, a webpage, an event, etc. You should incorporate at least two substantial texts, and at least one of these should be produced by your community or a specific member of it. You are welcome to address further texts to provide other possible points of comparison. Be sure to include a works cited page and to include appropriate in-text citations as needed.

Specifics

For each of the main texts you address, you should identify and analyze the main argument/purpose, a range of rhetorical strategies (at least 3-5) embodied in the text, and the effectiveness and persuasiveness of these appeals for various audiences. In terms of rhetorical strategies, you can focus on the appeals that are most prominent and relevant in a given text; you don’t necessarily need to address every appeal that we have discussed in class. In terms of audience, you can draw on your understanding of your community and other relevant communities that you developed in Unit 1 and any other evidence that gives you insight into the audience.

You should also have a section comparing your texts, their rhetorical appeals, and their persuasiveness and effectiveness. You can address the following sorts of questions: How are the texts similar and different in terms of their rhetorical strategies and appeals? Are their appeals appropriate and effective for the subject matter/argument/purpose of the text? Do these texts appeal to similar or different audiences? Is one text likely to be more effective or persuasive for its given audience? How so? Does one text do a better job considering and addressing your community? What do you learn about your community by considering these texts together? One of the main goals here is to get a specific sense for how the same community and audience might respond to different arguments and appeals and/or how different audiences might respond to similar arguments and appeals. You should also aim to offer some sort of larger insight into your community or the issue at hand through your analysis.

Argument Invention

This short (1 page, single-spaced, 12 pt font, 1″ margins) paper gives you an opportunity to begin constructing the argument you will make in Paper 3. We want to work toward making our arguments concise but dense (in a good way – not difficult to comprehend but packed with substance). This short paper should help us explore possibilities. Your paper should begin with four separate paragraphs that frame your argument in different ways according to the categories of stasis theory. So…

• First, try frame your position as a causal argument. Thinking of your community or an issue relevant to it, can you make an argument in terms of cause or effect? What causes this particular condition within the community? What sort of effects follow from particular actions or aspects of the community? After you articulate a causal claim, offer the reasoning behind your thinking and identify counter-arguments that people might make in response to your thinking.

• Next, move on to a definition argument. How should we define a key term for your community or a relevant issue? How will this definition shape our understanding of the community or the situation? Why should we frame the term in this way instead of another?

• Next, articulate your position as an evaluative argument by focusing on a specific aspect of your community and assessing its value. Is this person/place/social practice/etc. good or bad? Helpful or unhelpful? Productive or unproductive? What are your criteria for making this judgment? Why are these criteria important?

• Finally, frame your position as a policy or proposal argument. Regarding a specific aspect of the community or a specific issue, what should be done? Why is this action needed? Why is this better than other possible courses of action?

In the final section (a paragraph or two), reflect on the rhetorical strategies you might use and which will be most effective. How can your argument appeal to logic and reasoning? To commonplace beliefs? To emotions? To your own character and credibility? Explain which appeals and strategies will be most effective for your argument and your audience/community.

Paper 3

This paper has two components, each of which asks you to address concerns related to delivery, genre, and formatting. The first aspect of the assignment is a 2-4 page paper (double spaced, 12 pt font, 1″ margins; the 2-4 pages is for the main body of the paper and doesn’t include the title page, abstract page, or references) that makes an argument about your community or a relevant issue. This paper should follow APA guidelines: it should include a title page, an abstract, a main body, and a list of references; it should follow APA formatting for these different pages, and it should also follow APA citation guidelines both in text and in the references.

In the body of the paper, you should introduce the conversation you are addressing (a specific issue or specific aspect of the community), offer a review of the literature (this is where your research from throughout the semester comes into play; we want an overview of other perspectives in the conversation), and then advance your own argument. You can divide your paper into different sections as you see fit. As you make your argument, you should draw on the terms and concepts we have encountered this semester to develop your thoughts. In this sense, you can be mindful of what sort of argument you are making (causal, definition, evaluation, policy) and what rhetorical strategies you are incorporating to appeal to your audience (which we can think of as a combination of your community and the other authors in the conversation around your community).

The second aspect of your paper is a one page memo or piece of professional correspondence. You should follow the guidelines in the relevant attachment. Audience will be an important consideration here: are you writing this to the community? Are you writing this to our class? Some other audience? Your choice of audience will affect your sense of purpose and how you advance your argument.

Paper 3 Peer Review

In class today, we will conduct peer reviews of Paper 3. Read over the following prompts before reading your partner’s paper so that you have a clear sense for what you will be addressing, and write out or type up your feedback in response to these prompts. Afterwards, discuss your comments.

1. Before reading your partner’s paper, let each other know if you have any particular questions or concerns about your papers. If your partner has any specific questions or concerns, be sure to address these in your written comments.

2. After reading your partner’s paper, write out a paragraph of rhetorical analysis. Identify the main argument and rhetorical appeals, and analyze the paper’s effectiveness in terms of audience. Is the argument persuasive? How will audiences respond to these appeals? What aspects of the paper are most effective and persuasive? Least effective and persuasive?

3. Going back to our writing exercises from Monday, note any places in the paper that could be made more concise and/or coherent. This is particularly important in the abstract for the main paper and also for the memo. You can make notes throughout the paper, but you should also identify three specific sentences or paragraphs that could be made more concise and rewrite them.

Paper 4

This paper gives you an opportunity to develop professional materials – a cover letter and resumé – and then to rhetorically analyze their effectiveness for a particular job posting, company, graduate school, etc. Generally speaking, the specifics are somewhat loose here. Your job letter and resumé should work from the thoughts and examples from The Business Writer’s Handbook and also from the sources and advice we looked at online. There are not specific requirements here other than trying to make these documents as effective as possible for your given purpose or application. If you want to submit multiple versions of these documents or specific parts of the documents to put different possibilities on the table, you are welcome to do so.

The rhetorical analysis section of the paper does have more specific requirements. It should be about a page (single-spaced, 12 pt font, 1” margins), and it should draw on the terms and questions we used in our rhetorical analyses in Unit 2. In this case, there will be less of an emphasis on purpose or argument (your purpose is to get an interview) and more of a focus on audience. Your rhetorical analysis should begin with an overview of your audience. Following the recommendations of the Purdue OWL and other sources, you should articulate an understanding of your audience based on the job ad and any other information you can find about the company from online resources, people who work there, job fairs, etc. What is this company or school looking for? What is important to them? What are their values? What are their needs?

Once we have a more thorough understanding of your audience, the rest of the paper should focus on explaining how specific aspects of your materials are designed with this audience in mind. How do you establish your credibility? How do you appeal to the company’s values? Are there any lines of reasoning you employ, any assumptions you work from as you describe yourself and present yourself as a viable candidate? More generally, why did you make the choices you did in terms of what you included, what information you prioritized, how you designed the documents, etc.?

Procedural Authorship

This assignment will include two components: the code for an Inform7 procedural text and a reflection paper. Your procedural text should be inspired by your community in some way: you might incorporate people, places, social practices, or objects relevant to your community; you might use the text as an opportunity to comment on the community positively or negatively; you might use the text as a means for revealing some aspect of the community’s attitudes, values, and beliefs. The reflection paper (1-2 pages, single-spaced, 1″ margins, 12 pt font) should address the following prompts:

• Explain how your procedural argument draws on your community. What did you use as inspiration? What did you hope to argue or communicate about your community?

• Explain how you engage Bogost’s notion of procedurality and how your project embodies a procedural rhetoric.

• Explain how you incorporated feedback that you received during the testing phase.

• Finally, reflect on how this assignment challenged or shifted your understanding of writing. What are the similarities and differences between writing this sort of text and the papers we’ve written throughout the semester? What are the three main insights you want to take away from this class in terms of writing overall?

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