You are going to work with a partner online to write a dialog essay. The general topic for your dialogues is “Using CRISPR to modify humans” I have given you several readings to begin your thinking on this issue. Also the film Gataaca should give you ideas of how a story develops. You may wish to do more research to contribute to your dialogue; remember, however, that our aim is not for you to come to a full and distinct understanding of the issue, but to experiment with ways of using dialogue as a form to explore controversial issues in science.
. You will turn in one complete paper, approximately a 3-5 page paper (follow dialog # guidelines)as a group. You should have done your preliminary reading before these online drafting sessions, and it might help to have some idea, at least individually, about what kind of character you would like to represent in the dialogue.
Below are some criteria I will use in evaluating your polished dialogues. These are meant to be suggestive and illustrative, not exhaustive; you may have additional creative ideas about content and format. You should, however, give some thought to each of these categories:
Use of characters: definition of character and role; consistency of the personality, assumptions, theoretical position of each character.
Setting: If you wish, you may set the scene to some degree through the dialogue; where are we? who are we?
Variety of argumentative techniques: examples and anecdotes; “thought experiments”; data from article or elsewhere; mathematics or statistics; deductive logic.. . . . etc.
Variety of persuasive techniques: emotional content, figures of speech, links to common experience, appeal to other authorities, use of character movement to encourage reader movement in ideas. . . . . . etc.
Written expression: mechanical accuracy and elegant choice of language are essential; try to make good use of the dialogue potential by developing a distinct voice for each character; exploit the figurative potential of the language as appropriate.
Audience awareness: the dialogue should be accessible to the inexpert audience; you might imagine some critical audience such as Galileo faced, if you want to make things more challenging!
Overall organization: Your exposition should take advantage of the non-linear potential of dialogue structure; points can be woven together in a flexible fashion, the movement of the dialogue can even surprise the reader on occasion or be interrupted by physical realities of the setting in which the dialogue takes place.
Conclusion: you should reach some tentative resolution of the issues you consider in your dialogue
The paper must have at least 4 characters with two of them representing “experts” in the field. You should quote these experts from sources that you locate either in print or online. All references must be cited at the end of the paper in MLA format. Use proper dialog format as described in a previous page. There should be no less than 40 exchanges between the characters.
Along with the completed dialogue, each member of the group should turn in a one-page self-reflection on the process of creating the dialogue. What things worked well in developing the dialogue? What was most difficult? What were the steps in your process? What did you learn from it? How would you characterize your own contribution to the group? How would you describe the process of the group? There will be an assignment page to turn in your reflection.
