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Sample Material for Writing 3 Course taught by Shay Brawn:

• Assignment One--Rhetorical Analysis (4 pages)
• Assignment Two--Contextual Analysis (5 pages)
• Assignment Three--Yes/Yes Paper (4-6 pages)
• Assignment Four-- Research Paper (12 pages)

Shay Brawn
Assignment One--Rhetorical Analysis (4 pages)

The purpose of this assignment is to engage closely with a particular text in order to understand its rhetorical purposes and logical structure and to demonstrate that understanding in a well- supported argument of your own. The assignment here is to write about King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail,"
focusing on one of three possible aspects of it:

Option 1. Examine the various strategies King uses to engage his particular audience(s). Some questions to consider: Who is his audience (how can you tell)? What are some of the means he uses to communicate effectively with them? Why are these means particularly appropriate for this audience/ these audiences? Does he maintain the same relationship to his audience(s) throughout? How critical, overall, is this dimension of his essay to the message he is conveying?

Option 2. Assess King's position on the limits of individual responsibility to the law. Some questions to consider: What, exactly, is his position? How does he support various aspects of it? Do you find that support effective? Why or why not? What are the broader implications of what he is arguing?

Option 3. Examine King's references to other texts and other voices. Some questions to consider: What purpose do these references serve? Do they (individually and collectively) serve only one purpose or do they serve multiple purposes? Under what conditions is King most likely to refer to other writers/thinkers? Is there a relationship between this rhetorical strategy and the message he is conveying or his larger purpose as a political and social actor?

Shay Brawn
Assignment Two--Contextual Analysis (5 pages)

The purpose of this assignment is to practice working with multiple texts, placing them in dialogue with each other. You have two options here:

Option 1. We have read two pairs of texts, King/Van Dusen and Kipnis/Schweitzer. Pick one of these pairings, and write an essay in which you place the texts in dialogue with each other. Be sure to provide as accurate and clear a summary of their arguments as you can. How effectively does each address the concerns raised by the other? Are there significant gaps? Are there issues neither of them sees? Are they writing from shared values or world views? What are the implications of the differences in their arguments? Is one of them more right than the other? Is there disagreement a symptom of a larger conflict in this society?

Option 2: Select any one of the texts we have read so far and read it in relationship to some other text or context. For instance, you might use King or Van Dusen to discuss the activities of protesters at the WTO meetings. Or, you might use Kipnis or Schweitzer to discuss the plea bargain in the recent Los Alamos spying case. Or, you might use any of these texts to engage with a film or a story or a poem or a painting that takes up related themes. Whichever path you take, along the way you should be using one text to illuminate the other (or, a more difficult task, demonstrating how they illuminate each other). That is, your goal is to create a dynamic conversation between different texts, not just to place them alongside each other.

Both of these options face you with some challenges in organization and emphasis. Are you subordinating one text to the other? How do you indicate that priority to your reader? Will you be moving back and forth between texts? In the same paragraph or in separate paragraphs or in some combination? Or, will you discuss one text fully and then the other in relation to it? If so, which goes first? Why?

Shay Brawn
Assignment Three--Yes/Yes Paper (4-6 pages)

Write two brief (2-3 pages) essays supporting to the best of your ability mutually incompatible stances on an issue. The purpose of this assignment is to encourage you to engage seriously with multiple perspectives. Ideally, it will explore positions on the issue you are going to write your research about, and your reader won't be able to tell which of those positions is closest to your own. (You may, in fact, not have decided on a stance, and this exercise will be the first stage in moving you toward that decision.) Be sure to provide clear reasons and to support those reasons with evidence. Research is not a requirement for this assignment, but if your topic demands some basic factual support, you will need to provide it.

Finally, "mutually incompatible" often means "pro and con," but it can refer to two pro or two con positions that are incompatible because they stem from core values or assumptions of fact that are in conflict. If you are thinking of a topic in which your audience might generally agree with you, but are doing so for the wrong reasons, it might be more useful for you to explore incompatible "pro" positions.

Shay Brawn
Assignment Four-- Research Paper (12 pages)

This is a multi-stage assignment, and it is extremely important that you hand in each part of the assignment on time so that I can get it back to you with comments in time for it to be useful to you.

1. Topic (ungraded). This is a very informal announcement of your topic, which may be any issue that is open to debate. Rather than simply naming your subject, though, I'd like you to try to formulate the main issue question you'll investigate and relevant subsidiary questions you believe you'll be addressing. If you have an initial answer to the question, say what it is. It is fine (perhaps even better) to be undecided. Also write a few sentences telling me how you initially plan to go about answering your questions: what information you think you'll need, where you think you'll find it, and so on. I'm going to give the librarian at Green a copy of your topic, so try to open up with a succinct formulation of your research interests.

2. Outline with annotated sources (graded). This assignment has three main components:

• A first draft of your introductory paragraph.
• An outline forecasting your argument. Try to make this as detailed as possible: the more you tell me about what you intend to do and say, the more helpful I can be in advising you. (And let me know if you have any particular concerns about phases of your argument.)
• An annotated list of four sources. Begin with a complete bibliographic citation. Then write a summary of the relevant parts of the source. Then say how you plan to use the source in your argument. (Does it present a view you plan to oppose? Does it represent an expert opinion? Is it providing evidence that will support a point you are making? etc.)
  
  

3. First draft (ungraded). I'm not calling it a rough draft because it won't do you any good to aim toward roughness. Write the very best version of your essay that you can. Doing so will make it easier for me and your peer evaluator to be helpful to you, because we won't waste time telling you to do what you already know you have to do. If you know there are particular parts of your draft about which you are unsure or with which you are dissatisfied, write a note to us explaining your concerns so that we'll be sure to address them. It is critical that you complete this assignment on time! Bring two copies of this draft, one for me and one for a peer reader.

4. Final draft (graded). This is the finished version of the essay. Revision here may mean revamping and restructuring the whole argument, or it may mean polishing your diction and syntax. It may mean both. It is my expectation that you will not confine yourself to responding to whatever criticisms and suggestions you received from your two readers.