UNIT ONE: MY INTELLECTUAL HOME (EDUCATION NARRATIVE)

Assignment by Professor Sean Scanlan

In this unit, I will assign several small writing assignments and one major essay that ask students to discuss their educational journeys and goals.

Weā€™ll look at the genre of Education Narratives to learn:

1) What genre means (there are many genres of writing: the novel, short story, poetry, editorial, peer reviewed article, and personal narrativeā€“among many others)

2) How people craft the personal narrative essay, and

3) What our own narrative can reveal to us and to others.

 

Unit One consists of:

  • One Coffeehouse Post
  • One Quiz
  • Two informal writing assignments
  • Several Freewriting assignments
  • One Major Essay (All of the above smaller writing assignments are designed to lead students toward the major essay. In short, they are part of the process of writing the major essay)

 

 

Essay 1: My Intellectual Home

 

This personal narrative essay asks students to practice these writing skills: description, comparison, quotation, and weaving. First, define and describe your home and your intellectual home. Second, choose one or two of your favorite readings from class, briefly summarize them (1-2 sentences), and explain the authorsā€™ intellectual home. Third, compare homes/intellectual homes among the readings in terms of your own; is your intellectual home different from or similar to the authorsā€™ intellectual homes? Do they share important characteristics? Fourth, provide a brief personal narrative of an educational experience that has influenced your intellectual home. Fifth, explore a way to build or revise your intellectual home in order to get the most out of City Tech. Simply put, this essay is meant to help students construct and put into action an academic philosophy for success at City Tech by thinking deeply about the importance of home.

We will use the term ā€œintellectual homeā€ to help us explore the goal of how to make education more meaningful to you through the concepts of people, place, and process. Our basic definition of intellectual home: what people, places, or processes help you to do your best academic work? For example, is your intellectual home your two best friends or the City Tech library or recopying your notes using your favorite mechanical pencilā€”or some combination of these three? By using the term intellectual home, we will analyze how these writers work to convince you that some aspect of education may be more important than another.

 

Article Authors (a tentative list)

 

Sherman Alexie

Salvatore Scibona

Malcom X

Hellen Keller

Bilal Rahmani

Howard Gardner

Esmeralda Santiago

 

The following questions may be helpful:

  • What is your actual home like? What is your intellectual home? What is your ideal intellectual home? How does your intellectual home connect to your actual home?
  • What exactly makes the articles that you like so good? Simply put, why are they your favorites.
  • What academic experience stands out in terms of guiding you toward a career or a class or an interest?

 

Rubric: Your essay will be graded in terms ofĀ FOURĀ major features:

  1. First Page: A clear introduction, title, thesis, and method (25 points)
  2. Formal Writing: Concrete nouns, well-structured sentences, and clear paragraphs (25 points)
  3. Articles: Clear exploration of the articles; correct weaving of at leastĀ fourĀ quotations from the articles or handouts (25 points)
  4. Personal Experiences and terms: Clear personal educational experiences: reflections of home, intellectual home (25 points)

 

Details: This essay must be at least 900 words long. It must be typed, double-spaced, and use standard margins, font, and paragraphs. Please use spell-check and grammar-check. See our Standard Journal/Essay Format, which is modified MLA style (see the Purdue OWL on our OpenLab website for guidance).