Writing Project 1 Assignment Prompt

Purpose

Writing Project One sets the stage for the work of the semester by introducing writing as a process and asking you to focus on developing your prewriting, invention, and critical reasoning skills. Ultimately, the goal is to produce a clear, critically reasoned argument. Given the time constraints of this project and the amount of work that goes into developing these skills, this is only the first step in our semester-long journey.

During this project, we will discuss methods to explore ideas in greater depth and question the implicit arguments that are made within those ideas. We will discuss methods for structuring academic arguments—more specifically why we want to avoid relying on the 5-paragraph essay template to write strong arguments.

The work we will be doing in Writing Project 1 will connect to the assignment prompt of Writing Project 2. While they are two distinct prompts, you may expect to continue the work on your topic that you start during WP1.

Readings

• Anzaldúa, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” Borderlands La Frontera, 2nd ed., Aunt Lute Books, 1999, pp. 75–86. PDF file.

• Baldwin, James. "A Talk to Teachers." Zinn Education Project, www.zinnedproject.org/materials/baldwin-talk-to-teachers. [this reading relates to the WP2 essay prompt, but it has been assigned during the WP1 assignment cycle]

• Donovan, Sarah J. "Write into Your Life's Arguments (A Personal Argument Essay)." Ethicalela.com, 16 December 2015, www.ethicalela.com/personalargument/.

• Gee, James Paul, and Elisabeth R. Hayes. “School and Passionate Affinity Spaces.” Language and Learning in the Digital Age, Taylor & Francis Group, 2011, pp. 65–76, ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/socal/detail.action?docID=801578.

• Lamott, Anne. “Shitty First Drafts.” Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers, edited by Paul Escholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark, 9th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005, pp. 93-96. PDF.

Premise

Now that we had a name, some of the fragment pieces began to fall together—who we were, what we were, how we had evolved. We began to get glimpses of what we might eventually become. — Gloria Anzaldúa, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”

As we will read together, Gloria Anzaldúa's experiences regarding language critically shaped her experiences as a student and as a person in the world. More specifically, the languages she knew and the use of those impacted her sense of identity. Like Anzaldúa, the words we hear and see and use shape our worlds, and our histories of literacy offer an important glimpse into the larger world of our educational experiences and values.

In this first writing project, we will discuss our personal histories of literacy and education—not only language, but any skill or knowledge that we value. Through that critical reflection work, we will begin to develop an understanding of what it is that we know and why it has been significant in our lives.

To help in this work, we’re going to read two chapters from scholars who talk about literacy practices and valuing knowledge whether it is "sanctioned" or "unsanctioned." As we discuss those readings and conduct our own critical reflections on our histories, we may begin to see the threads which connect Anzaldúa’s work on language and identity with the work of James Paul Gee and Elisabeth Hayes and their research on passionate affinity spaces.

I want to make sure that we discuss these concepts and explore connections together as we move through this project. I propose that both of these readings demonstrate how the “official” boundaries of learning and knowledge are far too limiting to capture the complexity of what it means to have knowledge. Instead, sometimes it’s through informal, passion-driven, or lived learning where we may find more significant knowledge. (Or perhaps not. There's always room to challenge these ideas.)

While WRIT 150 as a course has been framed around the learning objective of developing your “essayist literacy”—to borrow a term from Gee and Hayes—with any luck, we’ll start to unravel just how and why that premise persists within our classroom and in societal conversations about what it means to be a good writer.

As we talk, read, and write about concepts of learning and of literacy acquisition and development, we will turn our gaze inward and reflect on our own experiences of learning and of knowing.

We will identify what we know, and more importantly, why our knowledge is significant. As we do that work, we may be engaging with issues of language, identities, cultures, histories, etc. While in the past, we may have been told that these facets of our histories are incongruous with the work of formal education, we will push against that idea.

Writing Prompt

For Writing Project One, I want you to reflect on the knowledge and experiences you bring to this class. We’re going to start with what we know, and we’re going to critically analyze why having that knowledge matters.

Spend some time thinking about what you know:

• What literacies do you have? That is, what topics do you know a lot about? They can be "courses" in school, or they can be concepts or skills that you have learned outside the classroom.

• What literacies do you value? What is more or most important to you? Why?

• What has influenced your knowledge of these topics?

• What “passionate affinity spaces” or communities may have shaped your knowledge?

• How has your learning in this area been supported or unsupported by formal or informal forces?

• What conflicts may surround your knowledge of these topics? Have those conflicts impacted your views of this knowledge?

You do not have to limit yourself to talking about language. You can select any "literacy" that you have developed. However, you should be very specific and narrow in selecting a topic for this essay. That is, given the short length of this paper and the need to do meaningful critical analysis, taking on too many ideas or too broad of a topic can be detrimental to digging deep. In your individual conferences, I'll be encouraging you to narrow your scope—try not to be frustrated by this; close examination of a topic will help you to better establish your understanding of why it holds significance to you.

Prompt Question

In a thesis-driven essay that breaks the 5-paragraph mold of writing, respond to the following question:

Why does your knowledge of this topic matter?

It’s a big question. And potentially confusing. As part of our work together in this first project, we’ll be discussing ways to unpack and “appropriate” prompt questions like this one into something that you can answer and write about.

That is an important step of learning to write in this course—that you find something that you’re motivated to write about. Even though some of these motivations might be artificially manufactured (the likelihood of independently wanting to write an essay on a topic like this may not be common, and the contexts of a college course impacts how you might approach it), through our work together, hopefully you will find something you have at least some interest in exploring.

As you consider a potential topic for WP1, I want to encourage you to use lists to explore the many possibilities of discussion and analysis for this assignment. Don’t settle on the first idea (or the first three points you come up with to support that idea)! Instead, try to do some mental stretching and break down the claims you might want to make about your knowledge into smaller parts before deciding on a topic.

Audience and Significance

You’re writing to an audience of your peers about how this knowledge is significant, so you should be able to start by convincing yourself that your topic matters. Keep in mind that it might not be traditionally significant—that is, even if it’s not something that would be part of a typical school curriculum, it can still matter to you (and to your reader, if your argument works out). In fact, it may prove motivating to feel like you have to “prove” that worth.

Upon selecting a narrow topic of something that you “know,” I want you to make an argument about why that knowledge matters or holds significance. You should aim to “convince” a reader—your peers in this class—that it does matter and why. Even if this argument is why it matters to your personally, it's important to show your reader that this knowledge is not simply arbitrary to your experience in the world.

Goals of this assignment

You can select from a wide range of potential topics to critically examine in this essay, provided you are able to generate a compelling argument.

By “compelling argument,” I mean an essay that does more than identify the obvious qualities of your chosen topic. Rather than focusing on surface-level discussion of your topic, you should “dig deep” into the ideas and consistently ask yourself “why” as you move through your essay.

Keep in mind that your reader will benefit from you “showing your work” of connecting the evidence you supply with the analysis of its significance to the claims you are making. As much as possible, explain how you are connecting your ideas to your argument.

Finally, the goal isn’t necessarily to get your reader to agree with your thesis by the end of your argument; instead, I want you to demonstrate to your reader that you’ve given your topic meaningful thought and consideration. You’re proving that you’ve thought about your topic and why it matters—not that your reader has to necessarily come to agree with you.

Outside Sources

For Writing Project One, you are not required to use outside sources. Much of your evidence will be drawn from personal experience or observation and critical reflection thereof. If you would like to cite outside sources such as shared class readings or research you find for your project, you may choose to do so, but you should be able to successfully complete this assignment with careful selection of firsthand evidence/experience and critical analysis of those examples.

Citations and Documentation

Always provide attribution and in-text citations for outside sources if you use them, and please remember to include a list of Works Cited as a separate page at the end of your essay. We will use the Modern Languages Association (MLA) style guide as the documentation style for this section of WRIT 150. For this first assignment, attempting citation and attribution is more important to me than “getting it right.”

If you are unfamiliar with MLA Style or academic citation, please ask me or visit the Writing Center for help. We will discuss MLA later in the semester, but I am happy to provide individual assistance in using it at any point in the semester.

Submission

This first project moves fast! We’re going to move through discussion quickly and start writing right away, so it’s important you stay on top of your work.

You’re going to post a provisional thesis statement/question, and list of ideas/claims in the Blackboard Discussion Board by 9 a.m. on Tuesday, September 6. I’ll meet with you individually for conferences to discuss those ideas and how to move forward to a draft between Tuesday, September 6 and Thursday, September 8.

From there, I want you to post a rough draft of your essay (at least three full double-spaced pages) to the Blackboard Discussion Board by the beginning of class on Monday, September 12. That class period will be our first opportunity to conduct some peer review work, so be sure to turn in your draft by the deadline and show up to that day's class with your laptop/tablet. You’ll get ancillary writing credit for your draft AND the peer response you post as part of that activity.

Final Drafts of WP1 will be due Friday, September 16, at 11:59 p.m.

Feedback and Grading

After you have submitted your final draft of Writing Project 1, I will read your submission and give you feedback during individual conferences. That feedback is given to help you improve your writing skills and to consider ways you might continue your work on this topic in Writing Project 2.

The grade you receive on your final draft of WP1 does not impact your final course grade; because the Grading Contract emphasizes the labor you put into your coursework, making an effort and trying your best to write a compelling argument for WP1 is what matters. The "grade" you receive on your final draft of this essay is intended to help you gauge the work you are doing in the course in relation to the WRIT 150 General Evaluation Rubric as you prepare for the Final Portfolio at the end of the course.

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