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. 

Course Recap for Friday, October 16, 2015

Analyzing a Piece of Art
In class, you answered several questions about aspects of your movie such as the characters, the setting, the conflict/resolution, the key scenes, etc.  You were also give background questions to answer about your movie such as who's the director, how does your piece fit into the specific genre of movie you're looking at, etc.  All of these questions were asked to help you to decide on a potential thesis statement for your analysis paper.  Your thesis for your analysis is a message that you feel the film sends through it's characters, plot points, visuals, etc. 

Once you determine what that message is you will have to gather evidence from the piece to support it.  You will be completing an outline for a movie and song of your choice, where you identify a potential thesis statement and then provide me with the evidence you would use to defend that thesis.

Some of the same questions you ask yourself when analyzing a movie, apply to the song.  How would you characterize the speaker?  What is the story of the song?  What is the conflict?  How does the music influence the song lyrics?  What do you know about the performer that could influence how you feel about the song? etc.  Remember that there is no right or wrong interpretation.  Your interpretation of the message is right as long as you have sufficient evidence to back it up.  Your goal is to show me that you know how to present a strong argument.


Homework (all due Next Friday Oct 23)

• Outline for your analysis of a song AND movie of your choice
• Read Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin 
• Read The All-Girl Football Team by Lewis Nordan 
• Read Virgins by Danielle Evans

Course Recap for Friday, October 9, 2015

Reflection Paper

When you turn in the final drafts of your narratives, they should be accompanied by a 500 word Reflection paper, reflecting on your writing process. In this paper you are going to answer the following questions.

1. What significant changes did you make between your first draft and your final and why? Be sure to include any classmate or instructor feedback you received or anything you may have learned from reading your classmates drafts (think back to the questions you answered on peer review day).

2. Compare and contrast writing the fictional narrative and the personal narrative? Which was easier for you? How did you approach each? Which of the two did you like the most?

3. What are you most proud of in each of your narratives (include at least one quoted passage)? If you still had time (or was forced to revise this paper yet again), what would you change? What could you do better? You must answer both parts of this question.

4. What did you take away from this project? What did you learn?

Final Drafts and Reflection Paper Due Monday by midnight via Google Docs (my gmail is micealaya.moses@gmail.com)

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Course Recap for Friday, October 2, 2015

Homework

• Narrative #2 (Due Monday, October 5 via ELI and Google Docs)
• Review of Narrative #2 (Due Friday, October 9 via ELI)

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Course Recap for Friday, September 25, 2015

Homework

• Submit One-Page Description of a person or event influential to your life via ELI (just click on the assignment and copy and paste) (Due tonight Friday 9/25 by midnight)
• Peer Review One-Page Description of at least one person's paper. (click on the assignment Practice Peer Review of Description and answer the questions) (Due Monday 9/28) *The assignment will be available later tonight once a few more papers have been submitted.
• First COMPLETED Draft of One of Your 750 word Narratives (the personal or fictional whichever one you are currently the most comfortable completing) (Due Friday 10/2 you can just bring it in class on your computer so others can read it)
• One-Page Dialogue of two characters negotiating over an object or action (the activity we started in class) (Due Friday 10/2 In-Class)
• FINAL REMINDER: Your blog is an ongoing assignment- You are to post 2 blogs and comment on 1 blog a week. It is always due except for the week of Thanksgiving. If you need more information on what the blogs are about or how long they should be check The Blog Assignment Sheet to the right in Class Documents

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Course Recap for Friday, September 18, 2015

Character Wants
As you start to develop your narratives, constantly keep in mind, what do my characters want.  What are they trying to achieve, gain, learn, buy, give away, etc?  From this question, we can learn a lot about who the character is and we can learn our conflict because there has to be something that's keeping them from getting what they want.  In "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris, the narrator, David wants to learn French and must overcome the obstacles of an insane teacher and his own insecurities about returning to school.  In "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara, the narrator Sylvia wants to remain in her comfort zone while Miss Moore wants to take her out of it.  Through the explorations of these conflicts we learn a lot about the people we're looking at and it here where our dramatic tension lies.

Show Don't Tell
It's one of the most elementary rules of narrative writing, show don't tell.  There is power in specificity.  It allows you to paint more vivid pictures and helps the reader to fully realize the characters you are describing.  We looked at Girl by Jamaica Kincaid (in Readings For Writers) and The Day Lady Died by Frank O'Hara (see Class Documents).  In these poems, the writers are able to create strong interesting characters with fascinating stories through telling.  Kincaid could have just said my mother was an old-fashioned woman who wanted her to be a lady or at least appear like one to the outside world, but instead she shows us this information by presenting us with the advice her mother gave her.  The Day Lady Died could be summed up as a wealthy (or formerly wealthy) man is going about his daily routine when he hears about the death of Billie Holiday.  Instead the author details that daily routine for us and through that we learn a lot of things from the narrator and his life.  Some stories are often stories where a person's daily routine was interrupted.  "I usually do things this way but today something changed."

Freewriting
I am going to strongly encourage you throughout the semester to incorporate freewriting as a part of your writing process. There are 3 different major aspects of writing: content, style, organization.  As writers, we often find ourselves trying to pay attention to all three aspects at the same time, which leads us to doing things like writing a few sentences, immediately declaring them bad in some way, and starting over.  This can be very time consuming and most importantly very discouraging.  What freewriting does is it allows you focus solely on the content.  What do I have to say about this topic? What do I know?  Once you've determined this you can then organize those thoughts and express them in a way appropriate for the given assignment.  Correcting yourself as you write can hinder creativity and it can make you feel like you don't have anything to say since you haven't really allowed yourself to explore this information.  You will have a few freewriting assignments that will be formally assigned and we will do freewriting in class, but I really encourage you to do this for every writing assignment, even when it's not assigned.

Why Blog?

• Because I want to know who you are.  Where you're coming from?  How you feel about the class and the work you're doing?
• Practice makes perfect.  The more you write, the better you'll become at it.  I only get to have you for a semester and I want to make you write as much as possible.
• Teaches you employable skills.  Being able to say you maintained a blog for semester can help build your resume.  It shows you have knowledge of an Internet medium and can be counted on to regularly produce content.
• It's the one assignment where the majority of the writing and work is completely yours.  You pick the topic.  You decide how you want it to look and sound.  It's something that I hope you'll be proud to take ownership of.
• Get used to public writing and writing for a public audience.  Again employable skills.

*Please see Blog Assignment Sheet for more details about your blog.

Homework

• Due Monday: Freewrite for your one page paper on a person (or event) who has been influential in your life.  This is not a formal paper.  It is a brainstorming exercise for you to practice the process of freewriting and get as many thoughts as you possibly can about your subject out of your head and on to the page.  Send it in via Google docs.
• Due Monday: Your second blog post of the semester.  See Blog Assignment Sheet underneath Class Documents
• Due Friday: Read Face by Alice Munro.  Consider the following questions as you read (you do not have to turn these questions in but we will be discussing them as a class) Please give yourself time to complete this story and read carefully.
• What do you know about the town where the story is set?  What type of people live in this town? In what ways does this information inform some of the choices of the characters?
• What is the difference between the main house where the narrator grew up and Bell's Cottage?
• Compare the narrator's mother to Sharon Suttles. Be prepared to discuss specific passages that illustrate your assumptions.
• Why does the narrator make the choice he makes in the end?
• Due Friday: Read Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway. For each line of dialogue take note of what it is we learn about the story, the characters, the setting, etc.
• Due Friday: Read The Unauthorized Autobiography of Me by Sherman Alexie. As you read the piece, ask yourself what do each of these events have in common with one another. What is the common thread?
• Due Friday: One Page Double-Spaced Description of a Person or Event that was influential to your life. This is a formal document and it will be shared with me and members of the class.

Course Recap for Friday, September 11, 2015

Rhetorical Situations

Today we discussed the elements of rhetorical situations.  A rhetorical situation is any set of circumstances that involves at least one person attempting to communicate information with another person.  Every rhetorical situations involves the following elements:

• Purpose
• Audience
• Stance
• Genre
• Medium/Design
• Context

For more information, check out The Norton Field Guide's take on Rhetorical Situations.   We then examined these elements in the communications we frequently share on a regular basis in pairs. For every piece you write in this class (or every piece you write truthfully), you will have to take into consideration the above elements. 

Homework

• Find a blog on a topic you care about.  After reading a few posts on the blog, identify the rhetorical elements of that blog (audience, purpose, stance, medium/design, context). This should be typed and emailed to me by the beginning of class Friday.
• Read "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris (page 14) and "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara (page 28) from Readings For Writers.  For each story, pick one character and write down a list of words you would use to describe that character, along with evidence from the text that proves your point.  For instance, if you think a character is kind, briefly tell us what you read in the text that led to that conclusion.  Also keep in mind as you read the rhetorical elements we discussed and how they are functioning in the pieces because we will discuss them in our next class. This can be handwritten.

Welcome to Thought and Writing

Hello I'm Mickey Moses, and I am your instructor for ENGL 1050.  Welcome to the class, and welcome to our blog.  This blog is our class's central hub.  Here you can find class recaps, homework assignments, readings, and helpful links.

Our class syllabus is located to the right of this post underneath Class Documents.  It lists the rules and expectations for this course.  We will read through the entire document in class, but some of the major points you want to remember are....

1. Come to class everyday.  Attendance is important and necessary in order for you to pass this class.
   
2. Complete all your assignments.  You cannot get points for work you do not complete.
   
3. Be respectful of me and your classmates. 
   
4. Don't cheat. 
   
5. Ask questions and participate in class discussions.   

How you should be in class.





I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you.