You can download the Project 2 assignment sheet by downloading it from here: ellis-jason-eng1101-project-2, or read it below. We will follow the included schedule for the remainder of the semester.

ENG 1101: Project 2, Using Your Brain to Explore a Career Path

ENG 1101 | Spring 2015 | Dr. Jason W. Ellis

 

Introduction

 

In your second major project of ENG 1101, you will have the opportunity to learn more about your selected major and career path (or one that you would like to explore more fully before selecting a major), and present your findings in a multimodal, research-supported blog post and a 5-minute, PowerPoint-based presentation.

 

Over the remaining weeks of the semester, we will break down this large project into smaller modules of research, drafting, and revising. Through this process, you will learn strategies for managing the large projects that you will encounter at City Tech and beyond.

 

The major components of this multimodal project (remember WOVEN) include a 1,250-word research-supported essay that explores your major, what you will do with your degree, and recommendations for others interested in your field, a blog post on our OpenLab website containing your essay, and a 5-minute, PowerPoint-based presentation that summarizes your essay for your peers.

 

 

Essay

 

Think of your essay as a fact-finding mission, an exploration of your educational and career opportunities, and a recommendation to your peers interested in the same field about how to learn more. Considering Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, think about this essay as an opportunity to tell your audience a story about your interest in your major, what you want to with what you learn at City Tech, and how they can find out more and follow in your footsteps.

 

Your essay’s unifying argument should be: This is the best major/career path for me, because reason one, reason two, and reason three. In the following, I will show you how to link these elements together and maintain a unity of thought.

 

We will break the essay up into the following components. Refer to the schedule to see when we will devote class time for drafting and peer review. Also, consider the paragraph numbers as recommendations only—you will have latitude in the number of paragraphs for your essay, but I wanted to give you one potential path for organizing your essay.

 

This is the recommended structure for your Project 2 essay. We will discuss how and why we will use this structure as we work through each part.

 

I. Introduction (1 paragraph)

a. Introduce yourself as a student at City Tech who is reflecting on her or his major and thinking ahead to enter a specific career field.

b. Thesis: This is the best career for me, because reason one, reason two, and reason three (or more).

c. Roadmap: In this essay, I will do these things in this order.

II. Background and Context (1 paragraph)

a. Present your general research about your major and career choice. This paragraph gives your reader some background and contextual information.

b. This paragraph should answer these kinds of questions: What do you learn in your major? What kinds of career options do you have after graduation in this major? What is the specific thing that you want to do with your education at City Tech? This paragraph should be supported with your research in the Course Catalog, City Tech website, and library research.

III. Supporting Evidence for Your Thesis (3 or more paragraphs)

a. Each of these paragraphs should support your thesis statement in the first paragraph.

b. Each paragraph should address only one of your reasons listed after “because” in your thesis statement.

c. These paragraphs should be supported with your library research.

IV. City Tech’s Preparation for Your Career (1 paragraph)

a. This is another supporting evidence paragraph, but it is specifically focused on how your educational and other opportunities at City Tech prepare you for your career.

b. Describe how your education at City Tech prepares you for your future career. This paragraph should be supported by research in the Course Catalog, City Tech website, and an in-person or email interview with a professor or advisor at City Tech.

V. Conclusion (1 paragraph)

a. The concluding paragraph should turn your discussion toward helping others who might be interested in your major or career choice.

b. It should answer this question: What recommendations can you make for others who are interested in your field to learn more at City Tech and in your outside research?

VI. Works Cited

Create a Works Cited list at the end of your essay that follows MLA formatting. Refer to the Purdue OWL Website (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/).

Remember to use proper parenthetical citations of all sources in the body of your essay.

Your essay’s argument must be supported by some kind of evidence beyond what you already know. As a minimal requirement, your essay must have three different cited sources of quoted and integrated material. This means that you will have quotes from other sources supporting what you have to say in your essay, and you will document where you took that quoted material from using the MLA professional style.

 

 

Blog Post

 

After you have completed your essay, you will copy-and-paste it in its entirety (including the Works Cited) into a new blog post on our OpenLab site. The title of your post should be: “Exploring City Tech’s [Your Major Name] at City Tech and a Career in [Your Career Field] by [Your First and Last Name].” For example, your title will look like this: “Exploring City Tech’s Professional and Technical Writing and a Career in New Media Writing by Jason Ellis.”

 

As a reminder, you create a new blog post by following these directions:

 

1. Login to OpenLab and navigate to our class’ site.
2. Mouse over the + sign on our site’s gray menu bar and click on “Post.”
3. You will now be on the Add New Post page.
4. Where it says, “Enter title here,” click and type your title (see above).
5. In the large white box beneath the title, you can type or copy-and-paste the writing that you have done elsewhere. This is where you will create your Project 2 blog post.

 

To receive full credit on the project, you will want to add at least three photos to your blog post that connect to or support what you are writing about in your essay. These photos should be new and taken by you specifically for this project. To add your photos to your blog post, you will first want to resize them with photo editing software on your smartphone or computer so that they are no larger than 1MB in size each. Then, position your cursor in your blog post where you want to place a photo, and click “Add Media.” Drag your photo into the Add Media box that appears and then click “Insert Into Post.” Repeat these steps for each photo after you determine where you would like your photos to appear in your blog post. They do not have to appear in the same place. Your photos should appear where they support what you have to say in your written essay.

 

Presentation

 

After you have published your blog post with your essay and supporting images, you will give a brief 5-minute presentation to the class that summarizes what you wrote about in your essay. The structure of your presentation should follow the essay structure, but you will summarize only the most important points in your oral presentation.

 

For this presentation, you will create a PowerPoint presentation that anchors what you say in your oral presentation. Your PowerPoint presentation should include text and images. You may use the photos that you include in your blog post and others that you take on your own. You may not use photos or images that you find on Google or elsewhere.

 

For your presentation, you may choose to memorize your speech, read from note cards, or read from printed notes. You may not use handwritten notes on notebook paper. You may not read or look at the PowerPoint as displayed on the screen behind you. You should make as much eye contact with your audience as possible and use your notes as a reference for occasional glances. You will want to practice your presentation at least once before your assigned presentation day. If you do not practice, it will be revealed during your presentation performance. Remember what I have said in class about professionalization—this is another step in that direction.

 

 

Tentative Schedule

 

8	M	3/16	John Medina’s Brain Rules, Wiring.	Student-led introduction to the reading.	Three-ring Binder: Notes on today’s reading.  Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.   Project One Blog Post Due on OpenLab before class begins.
	W	3/18	Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, Night Story.	Student-led introduction to the reading. Introduce Project Two.	Three-ring Binder: Notes on today’s reading.  Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.
9	M	3/23	John Medina’s Brain Rules, Attention.	Student-led introduction to the reading.In-class writing exercise to develop the first paragraph of your Project 2 essay.	Three-ring Binder: Notes on today’s reading.  Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.
	W	3/25	Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, The Mind is a Storyteller.	Student-led introduction to the reading. Peer review your first paragraph with your team during class.	Three-ring Binder: Notes on today’s reading.  Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.
10	M	3/30	John Medina’s Brain Rules, Memory.	Student-led introduction to the reading. In-class writing exercise to develop the second, third, and fourth paragraphs of your Project 2 essay.	Three-ring Binder: Notes on today’s reading.  Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.
	W	4/1	Meet outside the Library on the 4th floor of the Atrium Building for our orientation.		Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.
11	M	4/6	No Class: Spring Recess
	W	4/8	No Class: Spring Recess
12	M	4/13	Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, The Moral of the Story. John Medina’s Brain Rules, Sensory Integration.	Student-led introduction to the reading. Continue writing second, third, and fourth paragraphs of your Project 2 essay during class.	Three-ring Binder: Notes on today’s reading.  Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.
	W	4/15	Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, Ink People Change the World.	Student-led introduction to the reading. Peer review of second, third, and fourth paragraphs of your Project 2 essay.	Three-ring Binder: Notes on today’s reading.  Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.   Bring three printed copies of your second, third, and fourth paragraphs of your Project 2 essay.
13	M	4/20	John Medina’s Brain Rules, Vision.	Student-led introduction to the reading. In-class writing exercise for the fifth and sixth paragraphs.	Three-ring Binder: Notes on today’s reading.  Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.
	W	4/22	Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, Life Stories.	Student-led introduction to the reading. Peer review of your fifth and sixth paragraphs.	Three-ring Binder: Notes on today’s reading.  Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.   Bring three printed copies of your fifth and sixth paragraphs to class.
14	M	4/27	John Medina’s Brain Rules, Music.	Student-led introduction to the reading. Review of professional style and documenting sources.	Three-ring Binder: Notes on today’s reading.  Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.
	W	4/29	Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, The Future of Story.	Student-led introduction to the reading. Final peer review of your entire Project 2 essay including your conclusion paragraph written over the break.	Three-ring Binder: Notes on today’s reading.  Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.   Bring three printed copies of your entire essay to class for peer review.
15	M	5/4	John Medina’s Brain Rules, Gender.	Student-led introduction to the reading. Answer questions about the Project Two blog post and presentation.	Three-ring Binder: Notes on today’s reading.  Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.
	W	5/6	John Medina’s Brain Rules, Exploration.	Project Two Presentations.	Three-ring Binder: Notes on today’s reading.  Blog: Comment on post for previous class’ reading.   Project Two Blog Post Due on OpenLab.
16	M	5/11		Project Two Presentations.
	W	5/13		Project Two Presentations. Handout readings for practice final exam.
17	M	5/18		Practice final exam discussion. Handout readings for final exam.	Practice final exam due.
	W	5/20	Final exam during class.

 

 

 

 

Holistic Grading

 

I grade your work holistically. First, this means that your work must be complete, on time, and done using the writing process. If these components are not met, you will likely lose points. Second, I evaluate your work using the attached grading rubric. I deduct points from a maximum score of 100 based on the weaknesses that I might find in your work. I will include constructive criticism and advice with your grade. Third, your grade will likely be higher if you can develop more revisions of each part, because each revision is like a mathematically iteration bringing you closer to being a very effective communicator. However, this process only works when your revisions are substantial—going back to the foundations of your writing, composing, and ideas. Simply copyediting or proofreading in the revision process will help with the Conventions section of the rubric but not likely the other parts of the rubric. Carefully consider how you do use the revision process.

 

 

Grading Rubric

 

Scale	Basic	Beginning	Developing	Competent	Mature	Exemplary
Rhetorical Awareness Response to the situation/assignment, considering elements such as purpose, audience, register, and context	Ignores two or more aspects of the situation and thus does not fulfill the task	Ignores at least one aspect of the situation and thus compromises effectiveness	Attempts to respond to all aspects of the situation, but the attempt is insufficient or inappropriate	Addresses the situation in a complete but perfunctory or predictable way	Addresses the situation completely, with unexpected insight	Addresses the situation in a complete, sophisticated manner that could advance professional discourse on the topic
Stance and Support Argument, evidence, and analysis	Involves an unspecified or confusing argument; lacks appropriate evidence	Makes an overly general argument; has weak or contradictory evidence	Lacks a unified argument; lacks significance (“so what?”); lacks sufficient analysis	Offers a unified, significant, and common position with predictable evidence and analysis	Offers a unified, distinct position with compelling evidence and analysis	Offers an inventive, expert-like position with precise and convincing evidence and analysis
Organization Structure and coherence, including elements such as introductions and conclusions as well as logical connections within and among paragraphs (or other meaningful chunks)	Lacks unity in constituent parts (such as paragraphs); fails to create coherence among constituent parts	Uses insufficient unifying statements (e.g., thesis statements, topic sentences, headings, or forecasting statements); uses few effective connections (e.g., transitions, match cuts, and hyperlinks)	Uses some effective unifying claims, but a few are unclear; makes connections weakly or inconsistently, as when claims appear as random lists or when paragraphs’ topics lack explicit ties to the thesis	States unifying claims with supporting points that relate clearly to the overall argument and employs an effective but mechanical scheme	Asserts and sustains a claim that develops progressively and adapts typical organizational schemes for the context, achieving substantive coherence	Asserts a sophisticated claim by incorporating diverse perspectives that are organized to achieve maximum coherence and momentum
Conventions Expectations for grammar, mechanics, style, citation, and genre	Involves errors that risk making the overall message distorted or incomprehensible	Involves a major pattern of errors	Involves some distracting errors	Meets expectations, with minor errors	Exceeds expectations in a virtually flawless manner	Manipulates expectations in ways that advance the argument
Design for Medium Features that use affordances to enhance factors such as comprehensibility and usability	Lacks the features necessary for the genre; neglects significant affordances, such as linking on the web; uses features   that conflict with or ignore the argument	Omits some important features; involves distracting inconsistencies in features (e.g., type and headings); uses features that don’t support argument	Uses features that support with argument, but some match imprecisely with content; involves minor omissions or inconsistencies	Supports the argument with features that are generally suited to genre and content	Promotes engagement and supports the argument with features that efficiently use affordances	Persuades with careful, seamless integration of features and content and with innovative use of affordances

Table 16. Outcomes for English 1101 and English 1102 specified by the Board of Regents and by Georgia Tech’s Writing and Communication Program (NB: In each cell, one or more items separated by semicolons could apply)