Assignment 1: Bad College Letter

MW306 Class: Assn. Mon. Feb. 7- Due Thur. Feb. 10 FRI 306. Class Assn. Fri. Feb. 11. Due Tues. Feb. 15

Assignment 1: Bad College Letter

Overview

1) First, read Christopher Buckley's "College Essay," which you will find in a PDF since it is no longer available online. (Posted on Class Website, Assignments page)

2) Then, for this assignment, I want you to think back to when you were a senior in high school applying to college or a college grad applying to grad school at CSUN. Consider the Rhetorical Situation of college applicants who are asked to write a letter to CSUN, explaining why they should be accepted to college: Who is your audience? What are the expectations of that audience? What is your purpose? What kind of ethos do you want to construct? What kind of writing style, examples, and claims are appropriate for this occasion?

Once you've figured out all the aspects of this Rhetorical Situation and what you should do in an admissions letter, I want you to write a letter to the CSUN Admissions office that does THE OPPOSITE of everything you've just figured out. Yes, you read that correctly. I want you to write an admissions letter that is so bad, it will guarantee that you don't even get into the University of Phoenix Online.

Don't be deceived: writing a bad letter is just as hard, if not harder, than writing a good one. Keep in mind that a bad letter isn't entirely about bad grammar and spelling. That helps, but it isn't everything. What, in essence, makes a application letter bad? Good intentions gone horribly wrong. In a good letter, being too obvious about how fabulous you are isn't going to help you; the same is true for this assignment: being too obvious about how bad an applicant you are isn't going to work.

My purpose here should be clear: by getting you to consider and write an unsuccessful letter, I hope you will be able to better see, understand, and avoid common mistakes and bad decisions when the time comes for you to write a good letter. I also hope this will be fun to write; just keep it PG-13.

3) Lastly, I want you to write a 250-word Rhetorical Reflection about your bad letter. Explain to me why your letter is bad. How are you constructing a bad ethos? How are you constructing an undesirable persona? How are you not fulfilling your purpose? How are you being inappropriate for the situation? In short, write a thorough explanation of your letter's badness.

Grading will be based on how thoroughly you address aspects of the Rhetorical Situation listed above.

Length: 500-700 word letter plus a 250-word Reflection/Rhetorical Analysis.

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