Londie Martin Written, Oral, Visual, and Electronic Composition Spring 2008 Place, Nature, and Environment

Unit 3: Assignment #5

Documented Argument about a Place

Minimum of 1,000 words plus a Works Cited page To talk about argument, and so to talk about advocacy, is to talk about how we can and should live our lives. It is to talk about what we should do as communities and as individuals. What position do you want to have in the world? What do you want the world to be? To answer these questions is to become an advocate for what matters to you. It is to start shaping the world in ways youhaving grown up in your local and national communitiesbelieve will better your communities. Compose, Design, Advocate, p. 112

Important Dates
March 30 Topic Proposal Memo with Annotated Bibliography due via email by 5 pm (specific instructions are on the moodle) April 10 600 word rough draft due for Peer Response (bring 1 paper copy to class) April 17 800 word rough draft due for Peer Response (bring 1 paper copy to class) April 22 Final Draft due in class

Assignment
For this assignment, you will utilize the tools you have learned so far about analysis, audience, place, composing, and design in the service of advocacy. For this assignment, you will write a documented essay that argues for a particular position on an issue that is important to you, and you will do so with multiple perspectives in mind. As with other assignments we have done throughout the semester, the topic you will write about is up to you. However, I am interested in this class becoming a potential launching pad for civic engagement. As many of us have observed, national-level issues have become so polarizing that it is difficult to truly engage in the discussion from a unique perspective. The focus in this class has been on our interaction with place and environment, and we have formed a bit of expertise for certain places through our work and the tools we have honed for analysis. For these reasons, I ask that you choose a topic that is relatively local in scale. By local, I mean topics that affect towns, cities, counties, neighborhoods, or some other specialized communities. To make sure that you keep a localized focus for this assignment, I ask that you clear your topic with me first by submitting a Topic Proposal Memo with Annotated Bibliography on March 30. Your focus will be an argument that derives from your topic. It will be necessary to discuss contextual issues in the paper, as we will work with topics that are specialized to certain communities. You must use at least three sources for your essay. If you use sources on the Internet, you must submit a photocopy of these materials with your essay. On April 22, bring the following materials to class in a flat twopocket folder: 1) Final Draft of your essay, 2) Rough Drafts from Peer Response Workshops, 3) photocopies of Internet source materials.

Connecting to WOVE
In keeping with the course objectives as defined by ISUComm, this assignment and the activities we do in class will involve the following: 1|Page

Londie Martin Written, Oral, Visual, and Electronic Composition Spring 2008 Place, Nature, and Environment Written Analyze professional writing to assess its purpose, audience, and rhetorical strategies Construct arguments that integrate logical, ethical, and emotional appeals Write source papers analyzing a rhetorical situation and identifying and accurately documenting appropriate source material Oral Be an effective team member in small groups as a contributor, listener, and presenter Electronic Rhetorically analyze electronic communication, such as emails or websites

Planning and Drafting

This assignment, more than any other this semester, requires careful planning. To a large extent, the success of your paper will depend on how thoroughly and diligently you carry out the writing process. Below are some suggestions for getting started. 1. Restrict your topic to an area of the subject that you can handle in a short paper. State your topic in the form of a question: Can you answer it within the limited scope of your paper? If you tightly restrict your topic, youll find that you can construct a more complete and satisfying paper. 2. Once youve focused your topic, collect your evidence from readings in our class and other sources (Internet, library, interviews, newspapers, etc.), and formulate a preliminary thesis. As you write your draft or outline, test your thesis and, if necessary, modify it as you go. As you can see, you need to complete several preliminary steps before you begin writing in earnest. Between composing your rough drafts and your final paper, youll need to keep several additional things in mind: 1. Your readers How much do your readers know about your topic? Are they interested in it? Do they have strong opinions about it? Do not assume that your readers have read the sources you have read. 2. Your purpose To persuade your readers to accept your position and perhaps act on it. 3. Your sources Interweave your sources into your paper to substantiate your thesis. Be careful not to rely exclusively on one source. Verify the accuracy of your information and quotations. Miscues can undermine the credibility of your thesis.

Documentation
In documenting your sources you may use the citation style used in your discipline. MLA is used widely in the humanities and APA in the social sciences. For examples, see The Brief Penguin Handbook or Purdue Universitys Online Writing Lab (OWL) at: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ Be careful not to plagiarize. If you use exact words from a source, be sure to use quotation marks, in-text citations, and a Works Cited page. Also, check to see that you havent used too many quotations in the paper; paraphrase the information instead.

Evaluation Criteria
Since this is your last out-of-class essay, you will want to demonstrate that you can employ the strategies and techniques weve talked about in the course. Some of them are listed below: A focused topic with a thesis that goes beyond the points made in the essays we read Relevant, concrete details that support your thesis A logical pattern of organization; transitions from one idea to the next that guide your reader through your material; unified 2|Page

Londie Martin Written, Oral, Visual, and Electronic Composition Spring 2008 Place, Nature, and Environment Paragraphs, language, and tone adapted to your subject, purpose, and audience A variety of sentence types (not short, choppy sentences) Accurate, well-documented use of sources (including paraphrasing and quoting) Few or no errors in correctness that distract the reader

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