purpose: At the heart of our life force, of evolution, & also at the heart of Octavia Butler's "earthseed" philosophy, part of what gives rise to Emergent Strategy (which is the heart of this course), is the simple pulse, a breath-rhythm, a one-two beat of:
...problem;response...
how do we survive? how do we know? how do we learn? how do we grow?
...problem;response...
it is at every level of life.
& it is at the heart of all academic knowledge: we see problems, & we learn by our responses to them.
in academia, this can take the form of, for example, researching & writing a Literature Review or Annotated Bibliography, in which you lay out the relevant existing scholarship in order to carve out the relevance of your new proposed research. like saying, "See, they haven't talked about This Bit quite yet, & that's where I come in," in a Very Super Smart way which is accepted by other academics: we will call this your Academic Discourse Community.
then, later, after having finished your research, in order to express your thoughts & conclusions, you might write an article of some kind to present at a Conference, or have it published in a Journal or Book.
that's a very simplified way of seeing the Scholarly Process.
we are going to do something like that, too. but in a way that is much more open to form & creativity, because we are going to acknowledge the biases & worthwhile criticisms that pertain to Academic Discourse Communities while also acknowledging that Scholarship, Genre Conventions — The Rules — are always changing & evolving.
SO: if the Scholarly Process is a sort of offering to Academia — a scholar's way of saying, "see look here! i know this new important thing, & i know it in a way that We can know it, & it helps us Respond to the Problem i noticed!" —
then let's let the term Scholarly Process
become a sort of stand-in,
a metaphor,
for How To Make An Offering
to your chosen Discourse Community.
(does that make sense? if it doesn't it will in a sec!)
so now then: choose a Discourse Community you want to address
in a sort of Solemn Offering kind of way.
who are they?
what Problem would you want to make them aware of?
how would you characterize & deepen it for them,
so that you could invite them to respond to it?
how would you invite them to Respond?
writing task: From WITHIN & TO a Discourse Community you (hope to) belong to,
characterize a Problem & Defend a Response.
Write in a way that would make your Community really appreciate your ideas.
requirements:
we are less interested in appealing to particular Requirements than to certain Problem-Making Concepts; concepts like this are present anywhere: storytelling, introspective exploration, academic research, organizing values, system building...
so, you decide the requirements.
as for the length of the paper, write until the story is complete.
even so, the following are helpful basic requirements, to give you a sense of the depth of what I'm asking of us:
approximately 15-20 pages TOTAL.
approximately 10 sources
types of sources: allies, frenemies, antagonists, insightful but eeehhhNo, academic, any type of true knowledge/experience that contribute to the discussion & invites your response.
hyperlinks & footnotes are acceptable as citations.
rubric: what would disappoint you & what would make you proud with a finished product?
reflection: here’s a chance to write about your writing: some questions to ponder & allow to inform this section:
how did you approach researching this problem? where did you start? how did you choose which voices to include?
what brave choices did you make, & why were they necessary?
was there anything unexpected that you discovered along the way?
what was difficult about the writing process & how did you overcome it?
what do you hope your audience will take away from your writing?
how would you change or improve your writing, when revisiting it? What modifications would be implemented to better “love” your problem?
“rules” were made to be broken. Which of those from the prompt did you break, & why was it effective to do so for your paper?
what do you want a do-over about?