Your Genre Piece

You are creating a second piece to supplement your research paper. We discussed a few genres in class and there are a long list of genres to choose from posted in Class Documents.

The goal of your piece is to reach your community and convince them of your problem. Along with a brief presentation of your piece you will be writing a brief paper answering the following questions:

1. Why did you choose this genre? How do you feel this genre will help you achieve your goals?
2. Why do you think this genre will appeal to your community?
3. Ideally, in what medium and contextwould you create your genre? In other words, when and where is the best time and place to present the genre to your community? What website or performance space or bulletin board, etc would help you reach the majority of your community?
4. Look at two or more examples of your genre. Based on the examples (which you need to mention in this piece), what things do you think are essential to the genre, what makes it what it is? For example if your genre is a comic, after looking at examples of comics, what do you think this is essential for comics? What must all comics have? What must they look they? What do they sound like? Are they formal or informal? Straightforward or poetic? Emotional or objective? Is it mostly text or pictures? Is there a particular format the examples follow? Questions like this. 
5. How did you attempt to make sure that you have included all the essential elements of the genre? In other words, explain why you feel the example you created is a passable example of the genre.

Things to Consider As Your Write Your Research Paper

1. Remember your community. Each of you are writing about a problem that is present in a group you are a part of. Make sure to address that in your paper. A lot of your research may be providing information that is not specific to your community. You need to be able explain why that info is relevant to your specific group. Do not forget we’re talking about a problem at your school, in your family, in your group, etc. Personal interviews are very helpful when attempting to personalize this essay.
2. You're allowed to use the word I in this paper but don't overuse it. Again stay away from phrases like I believe, I think, I feel. I'm going to assume that any information you don't attribute to a source are your own thoughts.
3. Try and find more than one solution for your problem and make sure at least one of your solutions is something people can actually act upon, something they can do. Provide something that can be seen or measured.
4. I've been using the term counter argument but another way to look at this section is to look at it as excuses. Not everyone has a group of people who directly oppose them. People may agree that your solution is good, but they still won't do it. Why? What excuse might they give for why they can't? Why is that a lame excuse? How can you make your solution more enticing to those people who don't necessarily think you’re wrong but are still unwilling to get on board?
5. I told you only needed one print source but that's no reason not to find more than one. Really think about where your source comes from. Who is backing this information? The thing about print sources (especially scholarly journals) is that they are usually more rigorously fact checked since they can't be posted immediately the way online sources can and they tend to be written by professionals.  In the final draft of your paper, if the majority of your sources that are personal blog posts and YouTube videos instead of reputable news sites and scholarly journals your research is weak.
6. Despite the importance of having source material, do not be afraid to propose problems or solutions that you can't back up with a source. Maybe you can't find any proof that your solution will work or you have a unique reason why you feel your issue should be addressed; that's fine. It means you're in innovator. As long as you clearly explain your thinking to the reader we should be right there with you. Source material makes a point stronger but lack of source material doesn't make a point invalid.

Course Recap for Friday November 20, 2015

Annotated Bibliography

The purpose of the annotated bibliography is to collect as much information about your topic as possible before you actually sit down to write about it.  You want to make sure that you know the issue you're discussing inside and out.  For your annotated bibliography you will be collecting 10 sources total.  You may not use all 10 sources in your actual paper, but it's a good thing to have as much supporting information as you possibly can.  For a lot of you, this is your first time thinking about this issue.

You are going to first put the source information in MLA format the way you would on a Works Cited page.  Then underneath the source you are going to write a 5 to 6 sentence paragraph summarizing the source and letting me know what information you found useful in the piece.  How can you use that information in your paper?  An annotated bibliography can help you organize your source material so you have a much better idea how to use those sources in your actual paper.

Research Questions

So what are the things you need to research?  For one you need to provide your audience with proof that your problem or issue is actually a problem that needs to be addressed.  Not everyone will agree that your community has this problem or if they do they might not think it's a very big deal.  You need to convince them that it is a big deal.  Why do they need to pay attention to this issue?

You need to find solutions.  Some of you may already have solutions in mind but some of you might not be sure yet exactly how you can solve the problem.  Research can help.  You need to first determine the causes of the problem. If you know what causes the issue, it'll be easier to determine how to treat it.  Once you come up with ways to solve the problem, you have to provide proof that your solution would work.  Why are you suggesting this method?  How do you know it'll be effective?

You also need to keep in mind the opposing side.  You're trying to convince people who are either on the fence about your issue or solution or people who are directly opposed to it.  They are going to have plenty of reasons why your issue isn't an issue or why your solution isn't the best.  You need to prove them wrong.  Acknowledging the other side shows your reader that you aren't biased and that you've looked at several possibilities and the one(s) you have chosen is the best one.

Homework

• Annotated Bibliography (10 sources) Due Monday by midnight via Google Docs 

Course Recap for Friday, November 13, 2015

Works Cited

Your Works Cited Page should be the last page of your paper. Everyone should include one because everyone should be quoting from the piece they analyzed. See below for examples on how to cite those types of sources.

Movie

Title. Dir (for director). First Name Last Name. Perf (for major performers). First Name Last Name. Studio,

Year. Type of Media.

Carrie. Dir. Brian De Palma. Perf. Sissy Spacek, John Travolta, Piper Laurie. United Artists, 1976. DVD.

Song

Artist Last Name, First Name. "Song Title." Album the song is on. Label it was released. Year. Type of

Media.

The Weeknd. "I Can't Feel My Face." Beauty Behind the Madness. Republic Records and XO, 2015. MP3.

Short Story

Author Last Name, First Name. "Title of Story." Original Publication. City Of Publication: Publisher, Year of

Publication. Type of Media.

Baldwin, James. "Sonny's Blues." Going to Meet the Man. New York City: Dial Press, 1965.

PDF file.

Nordan, Lewis. "The All-Girl Football Team." The All-Girl Football Team. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State

University Press, 1986. PDF file.

Evans, Danielle. "Virgins." Before You Suffocate Your Fool Self. New York City: Riverhead Books, 2011.

PDF file.

Website

Author Last Name, First Name (if any). "Article Title." Website Article is Published. Organization that owns

website (if any), Date Published. Type of Media. Date You Accessed it.

Lundman, Susan. "How to Make Vegetarian Chilli." Ehow. Demand Media, 06 July 2015. Web. 13 Nov.

2015

Homework

• Analysis Paper Final Drafts Due Saturday, Nov 14 by noon via Google Docs.
• Logical Fallacy Assignment (Editorial) Due Monday, Nov 16 by midnight via Google Docs.
• Read "How to Say Nothing in Five Hundred Words" by Paul Roberts (pg 93 Readings for Writers) and "Working at McDonald's" by Amitai Etzioni (pg 134 Readings for Writers) for Friday, Nov. 20.
• Get a Head Start on the Annotated Bibliography Due Monday Nov. 23 by gathering a few sources about your community concern. (Optional but a Really Good Idea).

 

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Course Recap for Friday, November 6, 2015

Aristotelian Appeals: Ethos, pathos, and logos
Ethos, pathos, and logos are the 3 modes of persuasion according to Aristotle. Ethos appeals to the credibility of the arguers, logos appeals to the logic, and pathos appeals to the emotion. The 3 work in tandem to create strong persuasive arguments. It is important for you to take each one into account. You don't want to argue for something based on your emotions that isn't logically sound, but you also don't want to argue for something that is logically sound that might anger or offend someone. And it won't matter how logical and agreeable your argument is if your audience doesn't trust you or find you credible. In other words, you have to remember that your audience is human and humans have a tendency to think both with their heads and their hearts. When we performed the exercise today, we determined which people were absolutely needed because of their skills and the use we could put those skills to. Here we used both ethos and logos. We need food, and James is a farmer, so James can stay. Some of us kept people around because of the emotional support that person would provide.  One group kept the old psychologist because we assumed she could be a soothing, motherly presence for the group.  Another group kept both children because they couldn't imagine killing off children and because the children could eventually become helpful. That is pathos with a little bit of logos thrown in since we can suppose that this people might be less willing to help us if we killed their children. You want to make sure that any formal (and sometimes informal) argument you present appeals to all 3 modes of persuasion because they are all valid.

Logical Fallacies

Logical fallacies are errors in logic. We think we're presenting logical reasoning for our claims but somewhere in our claim we are making faulty assumptions that take away from our argument. There are different kinds of logical fallacies that people make in presenting their positions.  It is a good idea to be familiar with them so you can point them out in a discussion, and so you can avoid using them yourself in an argument. Logical fallacies hide the truth, so pointing them out is very useful. Check out the List of Logical Fallacies for some common ones. We will be working the next week at making sure we know these types of fallacies when we see them.

Homework

• Submit your Analysis Papers first drafts via ELI and Google Docs and Review your classmates papers (you'll be reading everybody's papers) Reviews Due Monday Nov. 9
• Final Draft of Analysis Papers Due Friday Nov. 13
• Research a Conspiracy Theory.  Come to class with a brief write up of the claims of that theory and the evidence they use to support those claims.  This can be handwritten bullet points. Due In-Class Friday, Nov. 13
• Hunting for Logical Fallacies: Read a series of editorials from your favorite publication or blog (New York Times, Fox News, NPR), looking for one or more of the logical fallacies we discussed in class.  Follow the instructions in the Logical Fallacy Assignment Sheet.  And if you need a refresher on the definitions of the fallacies, check out the List of Logical Fallacies (both underneath Class Documents). Due Monday, Nov. 16

Course Recap for Friday, October 30, 2015

Homework

• Outline analyzing one of the 3 short stories (Virgins, All-Girl Football Team or Sonny's Blues) Due Monday November 2
• Between your three outlines (your movie, song, and short story) choose 2 of them to develop into a full paper and submit your first drafts Friday November 6

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Course Recap for Friday, October 23, 2015

Class was cancelled.  Here's your homework for the week.

Homework

• The outlines that were due today.  If you haven't typed them, I need you to do so.  Remember the outline is just that.  An outline for the paper.  You don't have to write the full paper.  I received a full paper which is fine but it was not required for this part of the assignment.  The easy way to do this is to click on the Analysis Outline link on the blog.  Go to File and then select Make a Copy.  This will allow you to go ahead and edit the document right in Google Docs and then you just have to share it with me when you're done.  The Sample Analysis Outline that I gave out last Friday is also on the blog if you want an idea of what I'm looking for.  Have this to me by Monday.  If you do so, I will give you feedback on your outline to let you know if you're on the right track.  I will not accept any outlines I don't receive by Monday.  This assignment was technically due today so all you should have to do is type it up.  You were basically given an extension so I won't accept any that are late.
•  If you haven't read the short stories, please do so and come to class Friday with a one sentence thesis statement written for each story. From each story, what is a message you received from it.  Again check the sample outline for an example of a thesis statement.  You'll pick a major theme from the piece, for instance, the theme of addiction is prevalent in Sonny's Blues and then tell me what you think the piece is saying about addiction.  We will look at the statements you come up with and narrow down which ones are good and which ones are not and talk about the ways you could go about defending those statements.  It's an easy assignment considering the reading should already be done.  One sentence thesis statement for each story.