What Are Your Curiosities: Rhetoric and Genre
In this unit, we are going to focus on and explore different genres that exist inside and outside of academia. By the end of this Module, you will write your own Curiosity Report. Your Curiosity Report is very similar to an Annotated Bibliography that you really thnk about reflect upon.
Some things to consider and understand in this Module:
What does rhetoric mean? What is the etymology of this word?
What is a rhetorical analysis? How do we do this?
What is a rhetorical situation?
What is genre? What are some different examples of genre? How do we analyze genre?
What does discourse mean? What is a discourse community? What is your discourse community (perhaps you participate in more than one community)?
The first thing you should do is to find/investigate an issue that you really care about. It can be any sort of issue that you would like to explore, but should be framed in the form of a question because it will help you to better find materials to analyze and answer your question. After you have explored your topic, or let’s call it a research question, start looking for materials.
Basically, this is an investigation and report of findings (NOT a traditional research paper). I am not looking for a thesis statement. I want you to investigate, analyze and report back on what you’ve found. The goal is to find answers to your question, but you may discover that you’ve come up with the wrong question or that you need to do more investigating. Your research t relate to your question.
Some examples of materials that could help you tackle answering your challenging question would be popular magazines or newspapers. Different magazines (both in print or online) often contain personal essays, articles that report on all sorts of issues, political cartoons, analyses, advertisements–even recipes or menus from different restaurants. After choosing your topic and publications that reflect your topic/question, you will write a short article (4–5 pages) in the style of that magazine or newspaper that reflects how that issue is discussed in the public realm. In order to complete this assignment, you should analyze four different texts related to this issue.
Choose at least one imaginative text such as a play, a movie script, a poem, a short story, or a novel.
Choose one visual/audio text such as a commercial, a movie, a website, a video, a TED Talk, a podcast, a graphic novel or an album.
Choose one very non-traditional text such as a collection of recipes, menus, a thread of responses to social media posts, placard-descriptions of art at a museum, or even signs posted on the walls at post offices, banks, City Tech, etc.
Choose one “non-literary” verbal text such as an academic essay, newspaper article, a workplace document (memos, business reports, job application announcements, job applications, resumes, etc.).
The argument you make, which answers your research question, will likely focus more on the representation of the issue than on the issue itself. For example, you might write about how people talk about about food insecurity/inequality rather than addressing the insecurities/inequities about food yourself. You might consider citing commonalities and differences in the ways that media address your issue.
You must analyze each one of your documents, writing at least 300 words for each one. You will provide an analysis of the content, but also a rhetorical analysis (we have been discussing this in class). You should write about not only what your article or text says, but consider its purpose, its audience, what era it is from, what the historical context was, etc. You must also provide citations (an annotated bibliography).
The entire document (your essay #2), including analysis of the four sources, introduction and conclusion, should be at least 1800 words, but it will probably be more. This is not a traditional essay, but it is a formal writing assignment. Pretend that this is a piece of writing that you must submit as part of a job application or an internship that you really, really want! Make sure you cite all of your resources (use OWL Purdue as we have discussed in class). Proofread. Edit. Make sure there is a clear introduction and a clear conclusion.
Consider following these steps as a guide:
1. Develop a question that you are curious about and that you find really interesting. In MODULE 2, you are primarily researching and analyzing. All of the hard work you do now will help you in the MODULE 3 because you will be using some of what you discover in Unit 2 to write more about what you have found out in one of the genres of the documents that you have chosen.
2. After you decide what your question is, you must get my approval. This is only to help you. You can tell me during our Virtual Office Hour or you can email me.
3. Begin researching! Go to the library website and look around at the databases. Look for sources outside of the library, too. Photograph what you find if it is on a wall and or painted on a street so you will remember. Document where you found this source because you will need to cite it in the final writing assignment.
4. Read and annotate these sources you find. Use the Reflection Worksheet to help you write about each source. Take notes. What did you learn from your text or document?
5. Begin writing your report!
6. The first draft of your report will be submitted to Discussion Board (just like you did for your Education/Literacy Narrative Essay) where you can read your classmates’ reports, and where you will peer edit your peer editing partner’s report (you will work with the same peer editing partner that you worked with on your Education/Literacy Narrative Essay).
How will you be graded?
1. CONTENT: Is your document readable and informative? Does it teach us about what we’ve learned? Is it a good source? Are the contents of your sources relevant to your question? Does it contain the rhetorical situation surrounding your sources? Who is your audience? Who is your discourse community? Did you write at least 1800 words?
2. RESEARCH: Did you do good research? One of the main goals for this assignment is for you to learn something new and interesting about your topic–and to help you learn to find information about whatever topics you want to investigate in the future after this class is finished. Just googling your topic is not real research. I want you to dig deep and to be creative in your research.
3. GENRE: You must have at least four different genres.
4. PRESENTATION: Make sure your work looks good. Proofread. Edit. You must have citations. DON’T BE SLOPPY or LAZY!
5. LANGUAGE: However you choose to write this assignment, make sure that your language is consistent. Check your grammar.
6. CITATION: Keep track of your research because you must provide citations.
