Semester Project: Intersections: Situation & Genres

During the first half of the semester, you have had the opportunity to explore one or more issues, problems, or topics that interest you and relates to your nursing major. Your goal in this ongoing exploration is to "learn more" and to develop your information literacy, as knowledge practices and as dispositions / habits of mind.

By mid-term, after consultation with me, with classmates, and with others, you made some preliminary choices about how you want to focus your research / inquiry for the second half of the semester. As part of that preliminary decision, you identified a particular situation / ongoing conversation (topic) in which you wish to participate, to which you want to contribute. You began to identify elements of this situation / conversation: an understanding of the issue / problems / situation; a need for action; specific interest groups / individuals; and possible ways you might contribute / participate in filling the need, using writing and information.

As you also learned during the first part of the semester (and continue to learn), you have numerous choices to make as you decide how to use writing in this situation. Further, you have begun to understand that your choices about how to use writing depend on the numerous ways that elements of a situation intersect with one another and with your choices about how you will use writing. One of the more important decisions you will make will be choosing the most effective recognizable forms (genres) you might use to accomplish your specific purpose, with specific audiences (and given the other variables in the situation).

For the second half of the semester, you will begin to refine your proposal decisions about how you will use writing to create at least three different "recognizable forms" of communication (genres) to address the issue / problem that is the focus of your participation in the situation you have identified. Obviously, your work during this part of the semester will require ongoing consultation with me, with classmate, and with others, as you learn more, consider choices, make final decision, and work through careful processes to plan, design, compose, and revise the various kinds of documents you are creating as a way to accomplish your purpose.

A note here: You are NOT "writing a research paper." Instead, you are using writing (multi-media, multi-modal) and using some of what you have learned through extensive and ongoing research to connect with readers, to achieve a specific purpose, in a specific situation.

Challenges:

• Identifying specific, plausible, and relevant purpose for your uses of writing
• Identifying specific readers and understanding what they know, need to know, and how most effectively to interact with them
• Distinguishing among potential readers to recognize that they are not a homogenous or monothilic, one-size-fits-all group; in other words, identify at least three sub-sets of readers or readers' needs
• Selecting appropriate information in each use of writing that fits readers' needs, using some of the information from your previous research to learn activities
• Identifying at least three specific recognizable forms of writing to use to achieve your purpose
• Recognizing that you may be producing several instances of some recognizable forms to ensure a plausible connection with particular readers; in other words, as a recognizable form, one poster or one pamphlet will not be sufficient as a "genre"; instead, you will produce more than one instance of a pamphlet. We will be discussing this more in class.

Here's how I might proceed if I were working on this project..

Assume I want others to join me in advocating for change in how student aid or debt is handled--interest rates, repayment, eligibility, etc. My research has helped me to understand these issues in greater detail and has helped me to identify specific possible ways that action might lead to change.

• ​Early semester: research to learn, discover, explore--what interests you?
• By mid-semester: research to learn, discover more--I've decided on a focus I want to continue to research because...I want to advocate for change or attention or interest...
• ​Last half of the semester: As I learn more about my focus and as I explore more about who else might join me, I learn about potential audience(s); I learn more about the "situation" surrounding my focus, about my potential readers. I begin to identify possible genres that reach my target audience; I learn about how those genres work; I learn about how to use some of what I've learned in my research in order to design and compose the best kinds of texts. I work on design, drafting, revising, etc.
• ​At the end of the semester: I have at least three different genres, three or more texts/documents that are clearly addressing the same focus but that are clearly designed for different segments of my audience. I have used lots of what I've learned from my research, some for some readers, some other for other readers. I now have a sense of how writing is social and rhetorical.

What this may look like...

For your three different genres, one genre will be composed as a group. You will be placed into groups and will present your genre at the First-Year Symposium (FYS) and this will count as your LEARNING COMMUNITY INTEGRATED ASSIGNMENT. This will count as only one of the genres for my class.

Your other two genres will be composed on your own. To do so, think specifically about the particular situation / ongoing conversation (topic) that you have been researching this semester and think about who should know about this topic. With a specific audience/situation in mind, you will compose a genre that shows research and a purpose. You will be using writing to DO something.