Writing Homework Help

This assignment will utilize your ability to decipher how and why an individual or discourse community uses reoccurring rhetorical choices to persuade or motivate their audience.

Targeted Learning:

Outcome 1: Students will be able to analyze and synthesize complex texts in ways that demonstrate an understanding of the situated and intertextual nature of writing and research.

Pathway: The writer is assessing the inquiry and writing choices of other writers to inform their own inquiry and writing decisions

Outcome 2: Students will engage in a recursive, inquiry-based writing and research process that is meaningful for a specific community.

Pathway: The writer researching, developing, and employing community-appropriate research and analytical methods.

Task:

first, complete the genre analysis worksheet

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r1NA-7LaBDQDgH…

then you will be analyzing one specific genre. The genre must be a response to a rhetorical situation, meaning a situation where people are communicating for a specific purpose.

• Find a single genre and collect 3 examples to establish legitimacy. You might need to look at similar content creators to find three examples. Don’t be afraid to broaden your search but keep in mind it must serve the same purpose/similar audience. For example, if you are looking at YouTube cooking videos, choose three from the same channel or three from different cooking channels. You may use the artifacts you have analyzed for the Genre Analysis Worksheet.
• Your genre can be an artifact consisting of written words, pictures, video, or gifs. It can also contain auditory components. You must analyze the choices made by the author to include these components. What is the purpose served by repeatedly using these rhetorical choices? Consider the text, font, word choice, appeals, format, organization, etc.
• Examine the methods of communication used to distribute the genre. Who does it interact or connect with? What situations does it respond to or create?

Your introduction should situate the reader with any basic understanding of the particular artifacts you chose to analyze (i.e. background knowledge essential to understanding your research). Your paper should then focus on the repeated features and functions of these artifacts. Your goal is to teach the audience (the reader) why these rhetorical and linguistic, visual, or auditory choices are used. While you will be doing some summarization of the artifact, your focus should be more on why these choices are made than describing what the choices are.

As you need to establish that these artifacts fit the criteria of a genre, you will need to use assigned readings from our class to support your claims. (Dirk)

This paper will include secondary sources to support your argument. We will be reading appropriate articles for class, and there is no need to look outside of required readings. Use the article’s ideas through citation or paraphrase, but be sure to cite according to MLA formatting and include a works cited. These passages should be used to support your arguments, not in place of them. Do not fall victim to allowing your source to do the work for you. Use your voice to make the argument, and theirs to support it.

In essence, you are turning the Genre Analysis worksheet into a more polished paper. Again, you are free to use the analysis you conducted for the worksheet, but this is more than copying and pasting into a word doc. Your ideas need to be connected to our class readings. Take the opportunity to discuss your topic with giving the reader an understanding of how the genres wor, who they serve, and how they are used to accomplish something- even if it’s as trivial as entertainment! And don’t forget to give an understanding in the introduction as to what this genre is. Pretend you are explaining it to your hip Aunt at Thanksgiving- the one who drinks white wine and says things are “lit”. Someone who knows enough about current things that you don’t have to explain the minutia but foreign enough that you need to break it down for them somewhat.

Need some direction? Here are some questions to consider that may help you develop your argument:

• How do community members learn to write specific genres for their community/viewers? What is the literacy process? Who controls/teaches/determines/withholds this literacy?
• What does your genre allow and/or prevent users from achieving?
• What purpose does the genre serve most? Least?
• Are genre users allowed to represent themselves fully? Does the genre require users to alter their identity or assume a created identity?
• Does the genre create inequalities or imbalances of power within the community?
• What kind of worldview(s) does the genre create, support, or deny?
• Is this genre difficult to master? Does it create potential roadblocks to new users? What implications do these have?
• Is the genre extremely similar or different from other genres a user might want to master?

Submission Guidelines:

• MLA or APA formatting is required, with at least 1 secondary source. All artifacts or outside sources used should also be included.
• 2-3 pages in length

REFLECTION

Answer the questions below. It should be approximately 250-300 words in length. I am asking you to truly consider the questions beyond “I like it. It was good.”

Questions:

1) According to the DWR website (and your syllabus), Targeted Learning Outcome Two states: Students will engage in a recursive, inquiry-based writing and research process that is meaningful for a specific community.

In what way did your understanding change of the artifacts you examined? How did your understanding evolve for the people who use these artifacts?

2) This was your first move towards establishing your identity in the Writing Studies scholarly community. How has your understanding of writing and research changed after completing this paper?