Due as a new page on your website by 5:00 PM on Monday, 5/13/13
Project #5: Final Research Paper
The final portfolio is an occasion to
look back at the work that you have put into your writing this semester and to
assess your growth as a writer. In the same way that you wrote, read, revised,
and edited each individual essay, the portfolio asks you to engage in a process
of composition that a returns to your
earlier work as an occasion for both introspection and celebration. In other
words, the portfolio invites you to think about the ways in which you actively
progressed in your development as a writer over the course of this semester.
Items required in your portfolio:
1) A Personal Writing Statement or
Philosophy of Writing.
2) A brief introduction explaining and
analyzing your writing process for each of
the five papers.
3) A revision of one of the first two
essays – whichever essay received a lower grade. Based on the strength of your
revisions, you may be able to raise the original grade of the paper within the
context of the portfolio; the original grade of the essay is still unchanged in
my overall gradebook.
4) Conclusion: An assessment of your
development in the course as exemplified in the portfolio.
Evaluating
the Portfolio
I will be considering following criteria
as I approach my evaluation of your portfolio, which places equal emphasis on the
revision and the new writing.
Completion.
All of the items listed above are included, and your portfolio is organized,
neat, and published to the website on
time. All of the writing should be free of typos and formatting problems;
the web design should be clean and professional in appearance; and any research
sources should be cited and documented accurately according to MLA style. (If
this is something that was imprecise or incorrect in the original assignment,
I’ll be looking for that to be fixed here.)
In all seriousness, this portfolio
should be a document that is highly polished and professional in its
appearance. Every effort should be made to publish a thoroughly edited and
rhetorically convincing chronicle of your work in this course. I am not just
referring to the content of the portfolio (in other words, what you write about), but also the manner in which it is composed
and presented (in other words, how it
appears to the reader).
Personal
Writing Statement/Philosophy of Writing. In general,
a writing philosophy demonstrates your own understanding of how language works;
the way in which rhetoric exists in our culture more generally; and how
writing can impact or inform your life. I will evaluate this document on how
well you have synthesized and personalized your ideas on writing based both on
the course objectives listed on the syllabus and your own personal experience.
Like your other essays, your philosophy needs to have a clear purpose with
ample detail to support this purpose, and it should have a recognizable thesis
or organizing idea. It should have a beginning that generates interest, an
ending that provides a sense of closure, and the parts in between should be
arranged in a logical and rhetorically effective sequence.
As always, creativity and originality
are encouraged. Essays should demonstrate stylistic maturity and mastery of the
editorial conventions of grammar and punctuation. This is not necessarily a
“personal narrative” or the story of your progress in the course, but a
statement about writing in general
based on your ideas and experience, but also your ability to be creative and
original in your written voice. You might begin the brainstorming process by
thinking about the questions: What is writing? What does it mean to write?
Additionally, this piece of writing
should be concise and succinct: 500-600 words.
Introductions
and Analyses of All Five Essays. These
introductions will explain and interrogate your writing process for each essay
in as much detail as you can remember. In addition to describing the literal
steps you took to write the paper, analyze the paper itself to determine what
worked for you and what did not. For example, if you are a procrastinator, did
you try to start earlier on one essay? How did that go? What might you do in
the future? How did you integrate new strategies that you’d learned over the
course of the semester – either from our class readings or from my comments on
previous papers? How does this essay satisfy one (or more) of our course
objectives? Above all, please give me a picture of what went into the
composition of each essay. Each short essay should be 200-300 words.
The
Revision of an Essay. Remember that revision is a
serious process, and a revision may
need to look much different than the original essay in the portfolio. It is
sometimes important to literally re-imagine and reorganize the paper, going
above and beyond my original suggestions to strengthen your writing. The best
revisions – and thus, the best grades – will not simply “fix” the things that I
remarked on in your work, but will demonstrate a willingness to really go back
and develop a strong essay that stands on its own.
The revision will factor into the
overall completion of the portfolio, but you may also raise that essay’s grade
in the portfolio. Please note that this essay must be revised significantly for me to reevaluate the overall
grade, and you will not automatically receive a higher grade simply by making
changes. If you have questions about what constitutes a revision, please
contact me before the portfolio is due.
Please include the revised essay along with the portfolio overall. Do not revise the original page for the essay on the website; this way, I can compare the two versions and look at the changes that you've made.
Conclusion:
Assessment. This conclusion is your chance to
evaluate your development in the course overall
based on the contents of your portfolio. Unlike the Writing Philosophy –
for which the subject is writing itself
– this assessment is a personal narrative of which you are the subject. For example, how did you conceive of your writing
at the beginning of the semester, and how would describe your progress? Be
specific and discuss how the essays in this portfolio chart your development.
How would you evaluate yourself in the course based on the work that you put
into it? Also, and importantly: what grade would you give your portfolio and
why? I will take this into consideration as I reread your work. Again, be
succinct: 500-600 words.
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Project #5: Final Research Paper
Peer Review draft of essay due in class on Friday, 5/3/13
Final Draft of essay due by midnight on Sunday, 5/5/13
Final Draft of essay due by midnight on Sunday, 5/5/13
As
it is the longest and most complex essay that we will be writing all
semester, it goes without saying that the final research paper is very
important indeed. Ideally, this essay will demonstrate and display the
kind of rhetorical strategies that you have developed throughout the
previous three papers of the semester – taking into account both what
works for you and what you’ve needed to work on. And in light of this,
it should also go without saying that with so much practice already
under our belts, my expectations for this paper higher than they’ve been
all semester. I really want to see you do well, and because I know that
you can, you’re going to have to work for it.
Sound
scary? Well, fortunately our recent essay assignments have helped us
build to this moment as a class. For Paper #4 in particular, our
objective was to research and illuminate a historical or cultural
context – its themes, its trends, its social relevance. In this final
paper, we will be building on this foundation of knowledge in order to
look closely and critically at one particular part of our culture:
fashion, music, film, sports, pet ownership, gardening, urban legends,
etc. In other words, by knowing what preceded or influenced this
phenomenon or cultural artifact (i.e. your previous research), you can
now more fully understand and analyze its particular place, meaning, and
legacy within that history.
Thinking of music, for example: what do the Beatles mean? How did Tupac change the game? How does Johnny Cash either defy or
embody everything we thought we knew about country music? Why is Bob
Marley still so beloved around the world? These are the kinds of
questions that you should start brainstorming in order to figure out
some unique claims that you can make in your argument.
Above all, this paper should provide a specific and in-depth analysis of those primary texts that constitute the expression of this culture. In other words, this essay is not a research-based biography of an artist or a chronology of an athlete’s career. Rather, you are asked to apply your own observation, insight, and argumentation
to a careful description of the effect of the songs, advertisements,
slogans or sayings, movies, or speeches. Basically, a primary source can
be anything that you can both identify for your readers (by citing,
posting on the website, etc.) and then explore and discuss in depth.
Research should help for citing
fact-based or contextual information, but you are responsible for
describing, explaining, and ultimately interpreting
the meaning and significance of your chosen research topic and its
significance and legacy. This will rely on strategies from our textbook
that we have practiced already in this semester, as well as what we
learned previously in the ENGL150 course.
The
good news is that you can literally use some of what you’ve already
written in Paper #4, but please know that this may need to be revised
and reformatted based on my comments on the paper (which I’ll get back
to you with enough time to apply them to this paper). In other words, do
not just copy-and-paste Paper #4 into the final paper! Please revise,
rethink, and make it make sense within this new context!
Because this paper is still an academic, research-based paper, I am requiring a few additional research sources: at least seven scholarly sources in total.
(This can include the five that you already used for Paper #4.) As
always, non-academic websites and other sources can be cited, but they
do not count toward the seven required scholarly sources. Also, I will
be adding a short list of specific objectives to this assignment
description, which we will address and discuss as a class.
Length = 2,100 - 2,500 words of written content (not including Works Cited list)
The webpage for this essay should include at least one (although ideally more than one) image or other form of multimedia
The webpage for this essay should include at least one (although ideally more than one) image or other form of multimedia
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Project #4 - Write to Analyze or Evaluate
Peer Review draft of essay due in class on Wednesday, 4/17/13
Final Draft of essay due by midnight on Friday, 4/19/13
Final Draft of essay due by midnight on Friday, 4/19/13
We
will be approaching this formal paper somewhat differently than our
first two, in that the work that we do here will directly filter into
and shape the argument that you will construct in the final research
paper. This will help us to a) be able to build on our work, ideally
making the composition of the final paper a little more organic, and b)
revise and resubmit your initial work into a new context in the final
paper. Because of the interrelated nature of these two assignments,
however, we will need to briefly set up the final paper here.
For the final research paper,
your principal objective will be to develop an argument that situates
one cultural phenomenon within a particular context and then critically
discuss and analyze how that phenomenon is a product of
its social or historical context. By “cultural phenomenon,” we are
referring to any aspect of our lives, media, or society that has a
history -- anything that comes out of a
set of forces or motivations that we can identify. Music, sports,
fashion, film, pet ownership, gardening... all of these things can be
suitable topics of interest. For example, let’s think about music. If
you wanted to write a paper about the influence of the band Nirvana on
modern rock, you would have to provide an overview of the musical
scene(s) into which the band emerged. How was their use of guitars
different from other popular rock of the time? Their vocals? Their
lyrics? Their image? Or in another realm altogether, how did Mozart
profoundly change the symphonic music of his time? Or how did the
Wu-Tang Clan change the game of hip-hop in the 1990s? What was the role
of music during the Civil Rights Movement, and which artists were looked
for inspiration and motivation? Does Toby Keith represent the best or
worst of America? You get the idea.
BUT!... For Essay #4,
our task is to develop a thoughtful, original analysis of a context in
which your chosen cultural phenomenon exists. The task here is to
develop a research-driven argument in which you present
and defend a thesis in light of what other scholars and specialists
have said about the topic. This is perhaps the closest thing to a
straight-up "research paper" that we will be writing, but this is not
just a summary of or a report on the available literature. The nature
of this project is to convey the necessary information while at the same
time acknowledging differences of opinion or debates within the field.
Are there disagreements between scholars about why something is the case, or what something
means? The challenge of this paper is to be able to incorporate
research while at the same time developing your own argument based on what you’ve been able to learn and assess from this research.
I expect that you will need to cite at least five scholarly sources in this paper,
in addition to any other sources that fall outside of the scholarly
realm. There are many good websites, magazines, and newspapers out
there, for example, but it is important to be able to work within the
conventions of academic writing for this paper. We will look at places
to look for research in class, as well as outline some strategies for
incorporating research into your own individual argument.
Please note that the purpose of Essay #4 -- as well as the principal challenge -- is to write about the context of something without yet offering your own analysis of those primary texts that
constitute that thing. In other words, your objective is to describe
the particular context that you've chosen for the final paper, but to do
so based on the ethos of
the research you choose. Rely on your scholarly research here! For
example, if you plan to write about Taylor Swift for the final paper,
you would use Essay #4 as an opportunity to describe the musical
context, climate, or culture into which she emerged, but not Swift
herself. Paper #4 will therefore inform your reader about a particular
social, historical, or cultural context as a stand-alone document. The
thesis here should be self-contained and demonstrated within this essay
itself. In other words, your reader would not (and should not) have to
know that the final paper will be about Swift for this essay to still be an argument. We'll discuss this in class.
Length = 1,200 to 1,400 words
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Project #3: Final Research Paper Proposal
Due on the website by midnight on Wednesday, March 27
The
purpose of this assignment is twofold: to develop a strong, succinct
proposal argument, and to establish a basis from which to work on the
final project in this course. Please remember that the final project in
this course will an analysis of the social or historical forces that
shape, cause, or influence a particular cultural phenomenon.
It
may help, in this case, to imagine as though I were an editor at a
magazine for which you were hoping to write a story about your chosen
research interest. How would you convince me to give you the “green light” on this project? Please propose the essay to me by addressing the following four questions.
1. What is your subject?
- Briefly introduce the research interest about which you’ll be writing.
-
Because we are also dealing with questions of historical, social, and
cultural and influence in this project, be sure to mention this as an
aspect of your subject as well.
2. Why is this important to address?
-
There should be something at stake in your essay. Remember that this is
not just a research paper or “report” about the topic, but a critical
analysis for which you will develop your own original thesis.
- Is there something controversial or debatable about this topic? That might be an obvious point of entry here.
-
Without mentioning any specific personal experience or reflection, it
might help to think about what inspired you to pursue this topic; you
could generate ideas this way, and then adapt that into a more formal
statement.
3. What has been said about this subject by others?
-
Although you do not need to cite sources specifically here, briefly
summarize some of the prevailing attitudes or opinions about your
research interest. (In other words, if your topic isn’t the subject of at least some debate and/or disagreement, you may need to rethink and/or overhaul your project itself.)
-
For this aspect of the proposal, you should demonstrate to me that you
know a little about this topic already as well as the parameters of the
discussion in the public sphere. This contributes to your ethos as a writer, and will convince me that you are “right for the job,” so to speak.
4. What will you add to our current conversation and/or knowledge of this subject?
-This
section will establish a working thesis on the subject, which of course
will be subject to revision and evolution over the course of writing
the essay.
-
You will need to demonstrate that there is something new to say about
this topic, and that you have an original or unique perspective on the
topic.
-
This will likely be the most difficult section of the proposal – but
also the most important to think about in advance of researching and
writing the final essay!
There is no set “length” for this project, but the best proposals will be thorough and carefully considered. Remember that you are making an argument here. You are trying to persuade me to be interested in this topic – as interested as you are!
As a formal proposal (not unlike the kind you might bring to a boss,
supervisor, or team leader in some future career), you should also
strive for accurate punctuation, spelling, and grammar according to the
standards of academic writing.
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Project #2 – Arguing for a Position
Peer Review draft of essay due in class on Monday, 3/4/13
Final Draft of essay due by midnight on Wednesday, 3/6/13
Rough Draft of website due Friday, 2/22/13
Hip-hop
may be one of the most divisive styles of music in America. Its lyrics, music,
style, fashion, slang, and attitude are often attacked by haters from both
inside and outside the industry. Sure, it is perhaps the most influential type
of music in the world right now, but on the other hand, there are lots of
people who argue that it is detrimental, demoralizing, or degrading. The
principal objective of this paper, then, is to develop an argument that makes a
claim either for or against the value of hip-hop in our culture – artistically,
socially, politically, or along whatever other lines of thought you might
imagine. How and why is this music important, either right now or in the past?
How does it respond to our shared culture or history? In what way does it
contradict itself in its ambitions? In what was does it promote or perpetuate
negative stereotypes? These are just a few questions that you might use to get
started, but you are welcome and encouraged to develop your own.
For whichever position that you choose, it will be crucial to present a thorough and nuanced argument that incorporates scholarly research and actual examples from the music and culture. Even if you don’t like the music – and especially even if you hate it – your argument will need the ethos of someone who really knows this music. Fortunately, we’ll be utilizing class time to listen to, look at, and read about hip-hop and hip-hop culture. This, of course, is part of the research process, which is itself part of the process of composition. You will also be required to do outside research this subject on your own as well, and I am happy to help out and provide feedback at any step in the process.
Because this is a formal writing assignment, your tone should strive to be professional and academic. Remember, though, that even academic writing has room for a sense of style that can help it stand out. All of the usual expectations apply: striking introductions, logical structure, claims with reasons, reasons with evidence, memorable conclusions, and so on. In addition, you will be required to incorporate at least three scholarly research sources in order to strengthen your position. One of these can be something that we’ve read as a class, but you should be able to find at least two academic sources on your own through our library and its databases. Your research should add to your argument by providing some specific information, data, or insight that helps to support your argument. (This is particularly important in moments of the argument where you may not have the necessary ethos to make a critical point on your own.)
For whichever position that you choose, it will be crucial to present a thorough and nuanced argument that incorporates scholarly research and actual examples from the music and culture. Even if you don’t like the music – and especially even if you hate it – your argument will need the ethos of someone who really knows this music. Fortunately, we’ll be utilizing class time to listen to, look at, and read about hip-hop and hip-hop culture. This, of course, is part of the research process, which is itself part of the process of composition. You will also be required to do outside research this subject on your own as well, and I am happy to help out and provide feedback at any step in the process.
Because this is a formal writing assignment, your tone should strive to be professional and academic. Remember, though, that even academic writing has room for a sense of style that can help it stand out. All of the usual expectations apply: striking introductions, logical structure, claims with reasons, reasons with evidence, memorable conclusions, and so on. In addition, you will be required to incorporate at least three scholarly research sources in order to strengthen your position. One of these can be something that we’ve read as a class, but you should be able to find at least two academic sources on your own through our library and its databases. Your research should add to your argument by providing some specific information, data, or insight that helps to support your argument. (This is particularly important in moments of the argument where you may not have the necessary ethos to make a critical point on your own.)
Remember,
too, that in an argument for a position, it is necessary to acknowledge and
address the opposing viewpoints and/or the limitations of your own argument. By
thinking about the topic from the point of view of your potential critics, you
will not only respond to their concerns, but likely develop a more thorough
understanding of your own position.
It is also important to also think about causes and effects throughout this paper. This is not to say predictions, however. Just because someone listens to violent music does not mean that are prone to violence themselves, for example. Instead, you might think about how the influence of a certain media or art form – in this case, hip-hop – may work to shape and/or determine different cultural outlooks, attitudes, and ideas: for better or for worse.
Summary:
In short, this paper should argue for or against the cultural value of hip-hop while at the same time recognizing the complexity of choosing a position in this debate. You should provide ample examples -- both from academic research and from the music itself -- to illustrate your main points. The best papers will provide an insightful, original analysis of what hip-hop means today, and how this meaning reflects something about the culture from which it emerges. This paper will need to cite at least three scholarly sources that you locate through the Pius Library catalogue or databases. You will also need to cite examples of the music, lyrics, and/or videos of actual hip-hop artists (which, as we’ve discussed in class, are essential as primary texts, but are not considered “scholarly” in the academic sense).
Length of essay = 1200-1500 words
It is also important to also think about causes and effects throughout this paper. This is not to say predictions, however. Just because someone listens to violent music does not mean that are prone to violence themselves, for example. Instead, you might think about how the influence of a certain media or art form – in this case, hip-hop – may work to shape and/or determine different cultural outlooks, attitudes, and ideas: for better or for worse.
Summary:
In short, this paper should argue for or against the cultural value of hip-hop while at the same time recognizing the complexity of choosing a position in this debate. You should provide ample examples -- both from academic research and from the music itself -- to illustrate your main points. The best papers will provide an insightful, original analysis of what hip-hop means today, and how this meaning reflects something about the culture from which it emerges. This paper will need to cite at least three scholarly sources that you locate through the Pius Library catalogue or databases. You will also need to cite examples of the music, lyrics, and/or videos of actual hip-hop artists (which, as we’ve discussed in class, are essential as primary texts, but are not considered “scholarly” in the academic sense).
Length of essay = 1200-1500 words
As with Essay #1, an audio recording of this essay is also required, either via Soundcloud, your computer, or your phone.
Website Component
Unlike
our previous essays, this assignment will not be submitted as a document file
via e-mail, but will be published to the web. There are two reasons for this.
One of which is that it gives us a greater repertoire of rhetorical tools in
order to persuade the reader, including audio, video, and images. The second
reason is that it will force us to see our
work as something public and purposeful – not just a “paper” that is submitted
to a teacher and given back with a grade.
Although
we will compose for the web in more depth later in the semester, this specific
project should appear as a webpage that includes at least one example of
embedded audio or video in order to provide a direct reference to the music
about which you are writing. If the process of creating a website or a blog is
totally unfamiliar to you, these kinds of functions can be done fairly easily
through sites like Wordpress.com or Blogger.com. (Hey, I can do it, and you’ve seen me
try to operate overhead projector in class!)
As
you are composing and/or adapting your essay to an online format, remember to
think about where and why you might include the audio, video, or images. The
placement of these media can be used rhetorically! In other words, the layout
of the essay on the site can be another way of specifically persuading your
reader of your position.
Privacy
settings for these sites can be set so that only I (and your peer reviewers)
can access the information, so please don’t be worried that your name and your
work will be all over the internet.
Requirements
for website (Paper #2):
--- Needs a
homepage. This will be your online
writing portfolio.
--- Needs a
specific page for Paper #2 (and we will be adding pages for Papers #3 and #4
later)
--- The Paper #2
page should utilize multimedia in at least one way. This can include embedded
audio (via Soundcloud, YouTube, etc.) or embedded video (via YouTube, Vimeo,
etc.)
--- Paper #2 page
can include images as well (please be sure to attribute them to their proper
owners or sources)
--- Paper #2 page
can include outside links, preferably opening in a new window (so that your
reader’s don’t slowly drift away from your
essay)
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Project #1 – Writing to Evaluate
Peer Review draft due in class on Friday, 2/1/13
Final Draft due via web by midnight on Sunday, 2/3/13
More so than almost any other art, music is something that we literally feel. From the imperceptibly mechanical movements in the ear to the physical thud that hits our chest at a loud concert or club, music always impacts and moves our bodies.
Project #1 – Writing to Evaluate
Peer Review draft due in class on Friday, 2/1/13
Final Draft due via web by midnight on Sunday, 2/3/13
More so than almost any other art, music is something that we literally feel. From the imperceptibly mechanical movements in the ear to the physical thud that hits our chest at a loud concert or club, music always impacts and moves our bodies.
It is perhaps because of this feeling – by which the physical always precedes the intellectual – that music is not always easy to describe. Our tastes in music are often difficult to justify, and to anyone who dares ask why we like something so much, the easiest answer may very well be: “I don’t know. I just like it!” Yet at the same time, there is always an evaluation in progress as you choose what music you listen to, and these choices are often informed by assumptions and criteria about music that you’ve come to understand over the course of your life (even if you’ve never had to think about it before).
The purpose of this essay is to think critically about your own musical tastes and to write a evaluative and informative essay that justifies the reasons why your favorite song is your favorite song. In order to do this, your essay will need to establish a rhetorical basis for your argument – that is, a set of reasons that your reader will need to accept as valid in this context. In other words, you’ll need to convey the way that you hear, feel, or remember the song. You are not trying to convince the reader that this should be her favorite song, but only to clearly express why you are so in love with it.
You are free to work informally and build your essay around a personal experience or significant event in which the song played a part. You can also be more systematic, though, and actually lay out and define what makes up a really good song. What do we – as listeners, as a species who have basically always liked music – look for in the experience of a song? (Remember that many readers may disagree with your criteria! How can you convince them to hear things from your perspective?)
This essay does not have to be strictly “logical” in its structure, however, and I encourage you to let the music itself inspire the process by which you compose your essay. How can you incorporate musical idioms and concepts like rhythm, harmony, volume, repetition, tone, and – above all – feeling into your writing? Can the music about which you are writing actually influence the style and voice of your essay? You can adopt a number of approaches to this project, including personal reflection, aesthetic criticism, historical importance, and/or social context; all of these will be addressed in class discussions before the essay is due.
Your paper will be evaluated according to a number of the different criteria that we will explore in the course, including but not limited to the following:
• Is the paper appropriate for a serious, academic audience?
• Is there a thesis in the paper that argues for the personal, artistic, and/or social importance of this song?
• Does the essay clearly offer reasons for its claims?
• Does the tone and style of this essay bear a debt to the music it describes?
Length = between 1000-1200 words
Also, as we've discussed in class, you should create an audio recording of you reading the essay to yourself. This can be submitted either via Soundcloud, played briefly to me on your laptop before class, or can be waived by visiting Writing Services (where I know that your essay will have been read out loud during the consultation).
