In “A State of Extremes,” Keenan Norris documents his journey across California. While he focuses on the people and places he encounters in and around community colleges, he seems to acknowledge something important about how all of our stories diverge and intersect. Toward the end of the narrative he notes, “Ours is a divided state, but our paradox is that we are infinitely interconnected.” Notice how he uses the collective pronouns “ours” and “we.” Part of what he seems to be doing is asking his readers to think about where and how they might fit into the intricate and sometimes contradictory story of California and its communities.
In Assignment 1, we asked you to draw from your own ‘funds of knowledge’ while interpreting Norris’s narrative. We’d now like you articulate this process of reading through your experiences by ‘talking back to’ the text.
Prompt:
Draft a formal letter to Keenan Norris in which you describe how your ‘funds of knowledge’ helped you understand his narrative. How did your experiences, observations, and/or research inform your reading about the people and places Norris encounters? With which themes, ideas, or even lines do you do resonate and why? While you’ll mostly be offering your own insights, you may also ask any questions you may have about Norris and/or his experiences.
Guidelines:
This assignment is meant to help you gauge your comfort and confidence when engaging with an academic or professional text through writing. As such, there are no ‘set’ guidelines for this assignment; there is neither a word count nor formatting requirements. There is no need to include a works cited page. That said, you should make decisions based on the rhetorical situation in which you’re writing. How would you format a letter to a professional writer? How would you acknowledge his ideas and introduce your own? You may choose to summarize or quote sections back to him to help him understand your connection to the text. These are rhetorical choices for you to make as a writer, and it’s okay for you to feel unsure. After all, writing is a process, and this is just your first step
