Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

From UMassWiki

Unit One: Personal Identity Narrative/Essay

Description

The English Department has, over the years, refined five different formal assignment criteria for this particular personal essay. It is an essay in that there should be some "point"; it is a narrative in the sense that your life needs to provide the support for that point.

Here are descriptions of the five formal choices for your identity narrative/essay:

“The Contexts that Make Me” or

“The Self as Writer” or

“The Self in Contradiction” or

“Blowing Things Into Proportion” or

“My Self in Words”

Teacher's Examples

Stark Steph (draft 1)

My first serious draft identity piece is a response to the movie, The Jacket. Students are yet to be impressed. :-) Check out their feedback to me.

No Bullshit (draft 2)

The second draft describing my Identity has benefitted tremendously from student feedback. Is it done? No...it is still short (572 words), but where is expansion necessary? For extra credit, please critique me again! steph (COM) 01:06, 8 March 2007 (EST)

Unit Two: Interacting with Text

The class voted on Geeta Kothari's If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?" and Gloria Anzaldua's "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" to read for the second unit essays on interacting with Texts.

Unit Three: Adding to a Conversation

This writing project focuses on the skills of Adding to a Conversation.

Huh? What conversation? You decide. In class this semester we have engaged two on-going conversations: one involving questions of privacy/publicity (specifically use of the course wiki) and also on learning and teaching (how we, together, create a learning environment). The form of your actual "paper" will be as a letter directed to a specific individual (or group) that is in a position to do something about a social problem that is of concern to you. In other words, you are to select an issue, problem, or cause that you care about, identify a specific place or incident needing action, research who is the proper person or group to address, and write that person a detailed, carefully researched "letter" that demonstrates your knowledge of all sides of the issue and offers a solution, including specific reasons why your proposed solution is necessary. You will need to include a brief (but accurate and well-rounded) history of the problem, quotes illustrating the various viewpoints on the problem, an analysis of the dilemma(s) represented by the different viewpoints, and a clear rationale for action.

Some examples are available for your reading pleasure. Topics covered by previous students include

• recovery efforts since Hurricane Katrina
• the (il)legality of downloading music
• cigarette disposal on campus
• increasing convenience for vegetarians at Hampshire Dining Hall
• reducing food waste on campus
• challenging media conglomeration
• eliminating standardized test scores in college admissions
• reducing penalties for underage drinking.

Several other topics were also covered. As you can see, the range is wide!

Unit Four: Interacting with Text

All the World is a Text is the Writing Program's conception of this assignment: "...writing is a series of choices that primarily depend on audience and context. The influences we bring to our position and who we explicate that position to are paramount in the outcome of our work. How we write what we write and who we write it to determines what it is that we write."

What will you choose to write? You have several options.

1. This I Believe

A common choice is a statement of belief. You may write a This I Believe essay with the intention of reading it aloud in the style of National Public Radio. Two "This I Believe" essays were included in last fall's class magazine ("Shit Happens" and "Risky Living"). You can find seven more examples from the Section 68 wiki. The kernel that gave me the idea for "Risky Living" appeared in a blogpost about a month ahead of actual writing. Spike churned "Shit Happens" out on the spur of the moment, with one serious revision. Depending upon what you know about yourself and the time it takes for you to gain a clear idea, you may prefer to chose one of our in-class conversations (since, I am assuming, it has been floating around in your brain for awhile). If you've been struck by inspiration, then "This I Believe" is probably a good choice. Want more info? Here are some concrete tips. Start trying to identify the beliefs expressed in whatever you are reading. What do [I mean]? Here are the [details] of Steph's writing process last fall.

Here are some do nots for This I Believe:

1. Do not argue against, argue for. Do make positive assertions, not negative complaints.
2. Do not make recommendations to somebody else. Instead, do write about a practice/behavior/action that you yourself actually do.
3. Do not say what's missing or wrong. Do write about what's present and right.
4. Do not tell the story of how you came to believe. Instead, do tell us what happens when you DO what you say you believe.
5. Do not describe what you wish others had given you. Instead, do describe what happens when you give/do this belief to others.

2. I Still Need to Tell You

You may also write in response to, or continuation of, one of the conversations we engaged as a class based on reading assignments, in-class dynamics, and current events. This paper will be more in the style of the Unit Three paper in that you are writing to a carefully chosen audience (us), referencing and responding to ideas we wrote relevant to the particular topic.

The four possibilities are collected Learning and Teaching header on our Course Homepage and include

1. pedagogy (how to teach, how to learn: this includes all the anonymous feedback, summaries, my responses, etc);
2. issues, thoughts, and concerns raised by de Zengotita on The Numbing of the American Mind;
3. our recent readings and discussion about school violence as a cost of masculinity; and
4. the use of the wiki in terms of when and whether student writing should be private and when it is legitimate or even necessary for student writing to be public: captured in all those quizzes we did at the beginning of the semester.

Final Reflection Letter

This project involves an in-depth analysis of student improvement as a writer over the course of the semester, including all assignments (major unit papers, homework, and in-class activities and discussion).