Assignments

WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

WRT 120-40

Assignment #1: Annotated Bibliography

Blog is rough draft. Final draft will include suggested grammar revisions from your peers.

5 pages (double-spaced)

You are currently blogging about current events. Step 1. Copy your blogs (including the ones on Balog and Shiva) into a word document and format it correctly (according to the paper format subheading in the syllabus). Step 2. Write a MLA-style citation for each website address you’ve visited while writing these blog entries, citing the authors, title of the articles, etc… (Sample: Harris, Robert. “Evaluating Internet Research Sources.” VirtualSalt. 15 June 2008. Web. 20 Apr. 2009. <http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm>.) Step 3. Alphabetically order each of your entries. (Author’s last name beginning with ‘A’ would be placed first, for example; if no author exists, than the first letter of the title is the letter to use). Step 4. Add summaries and opinions you’re your blog entry beneath the corresponding alphabetical citation information; include at least one paragraph of summary and one paragraph of opinion (which should take into account whatever rhetorical analysis you may have performed).

Assignment #2: Cultural Analysis

Rough Draft, Peer Review, Final Draft Required

5 pages (double-spaced)

Step 1. Using your annotated bibliography and the articles you’ve begun to analyze, study the articles and your responses to them for cultural information. Come up with a list of observations and another list of the inferences you draw from these observations. Step 2. Chose one particular article and look for the same news, but reported upon from a different cultural perspective; for instance, you might have initially found an article on Syria in The New York Times, but then you look for a very similar article reported from a very different cultural context published on the same day or during the same week in Al Jazeera. Or, to give another example, you might find mainstream news about the new Miss America of Indian origin, and then find a paper that is published in India that is also reporting about this event. Or, perhaps you might compare something you read in a predominantly black publication and compare it to a more white publication reporting on the same issue. Or perhaps one article is written by a man, and you find another about the same topic written by a woman that’s noticeably different… Etc… Step 3. Ask yourself in both cases rhetorical questions: what contexts made the various interpretations of this news item possible? Who are the publishers of this news and who are their audiences? What values, beliefs, or ideologies are reinforced or reflected or hidden within the articles? What values, beliefs, or ideologies are disrupted or resisted by them? What values, beliefs, or ideologies are produced as a result of the publication of this news? Really, what you are trying to pinpoint is how each article interprets the same news differently and how and why. Freewrite your responses to these questions. Step 4. How does your culture effect how you read these texts? Interrogate your own cultural blind spots, privileges, etc... Step 5. Come up with a strong thesis, such as “Although the context surrounding the murder of [name of victim in article] in [title of article #1] is undeniably outrageous, [name of author] chooses to veil questions of racial and sexual identity, yet hints at these things through the quoted dialect and by describing the victim in a sexually explicit way. Whereas in [title of article #2] the author plainly reveals the [name of victim]’s race and gender and then offers an in-depth analysis of the relevance of victim’s culture to the crime committed. [Title of article #2] holds my attention, because I am a white woman who has survived such a crime. I believe that [author #1] is purposely withholding information because [whatever reason].” Remember: your analysis (close reading of the article in question) will be focused and incisive, thus also opening up space for your larger philosophical/cultural/ideological reflections. Please include your cultural background, but don’t make the essay about you. It is an essay about how you’ve analyzed and interpreted two news articles with differing takes on the same item of concern. Step 6. Back up your claim with supporting information and analysis. Synthesize multiple critical viewpoints into a new interpretation of the issue at hand. Step 7. Restate your thesis and make sure it is complicated by a summary of all the supporting evidence you’ve gathered and included, and then offer your new look at the news item to conclude. You are welcome to conclude with a question, as not all theses are 100% defendable.

Assignment #3: Write Your Own News Story

Rough Draft, Final Draft Required.

4 pages (double-spaced), option to include your own photographs (two at most).

Assignment #4: Fictionalize Your News Story by Writing from an “Opposing” or Radically Different Viewpoint

Rough Draft, Peer Review, Final Draft Required

3 pages (double-spaced)

Final Exam (Letter to me about what you’ve taken away from this course about the process of analyzing, writing, and producing news, not to mention how cultural and structural discrepancies and inequalities, not to mention understandings of genre impacts the “truth” as reported to and by us.)

3 pages