What Are Your Curiosities: Rhetoric, Genre, Discourse?  (homage to profs. Clarke & Blain)

Unit 2 will be an investigation into and a report on a specific question about a topic that interests you. You will conduct research into various genres (four (4) sources), gather, and evaluate the information in those sources, and present a report on your findings. This report will be thesis driven based on your investigating, analysis, and thinking of your sources, and what you have learned from your investigation. You may arrive at an answer to your initial question, or you may find you are asking the wrong questions and will need to rethink your approach.

 

Basically, this is an investigation and report of findings (NOT a traditional research paper). I want you to investigate, analyze and report back on what you have found.   The goal is to find answers to your questions, but you may discover that you have come up with the wrong question or that you need to do more investigating.

 

As opposed to a traditional “research paper,” in this Unit, you should:

• learn research skills that will transfer to other learning situations,
• evaluate sources both in their content and context, and
• synthesize sources from different perspectives with your own perspective

 

Outline of Tasks:

 

1. Ask and develop a specific question. This should be something you care about, something you’ve always wondered about—something that will keep you engaged, as you’ll be continuing this line of inquiry in Unit 3 as well. Complete the Lenses Worksheet and have your question approved by me. (think: to what extent does….) If you change your question, your new question must be approved. (You cannot change your question past _______.)

 

2. Research, gather information on, and analyze four (4) sources consisting of at least three (3) different genres.

 

• Read and annotate sources with your question in mind. Complete the Fundamental Five Worksheet for each source. Then, to extend your analysis of each source, to think about the WHY behind the author’s choices. As you analyze each source, take into account and note the relationship between the source and your research question.

 

• Now that the investigation, gathering, and thinking about are over, you will create something new that reflects your topic/idea and its connection to your Discourse Community. It can be anything from a song or lyrics, to a chapter of a book or part of a comic, to an article for an online news outlet, to an Instagram story, to a personal essay. This is all about sharing what you learned from your investigating, in a different way (new genre). Here are some ideas:
• If you love a certain genre of music, write some lyrics for a song.
• If you write, write a chapter of your favorite book or kind of book, a scene from your favorite tv show or movie.
• If you think what you learned was important as news or facts, write a short piece for an online news or opinion site.
• Or write your obituary (could be interesting)
• You can also make a video of something you’re doing – like cooking with the family.

Get creative! And also share something important with your audience.

 

3. You’ll also write a Writer’s Statement of at least 750 words to go with the above. There are three sections – here are the things you need to address in each one. Use “I” since you’ll be telling me what you did and why:

 

·      Describe what your goals were when you started – why was it important for you to do what you did? Who were you writing it for (assuming that everything we create is for an audience—we need to think about who we are creating for and why? What kind of response were you hoping for? What might people do with your piece? ·      Describe the choices you made and why you made them. Were there technical reasons? Did you keep coming up with better ideas? Did you re-think your goal? Be specific and point to the elements you included and chose to exclude, how you put them together, etc. Take your audience through the process of creating your piece – the good, the bad, the re-thinking, the awful, the pleasure. ·      Now that it is done, explain what you think is good about it as well as what you think you might have done better and why. Also talk about what you learned in the process.

 

 

4. Reflect on your reading and writing in Unit 2 and write a reflective letter about the process. Consider: What did I learn from this process? About my own process of thought? About my reading process? My writing process? How can I apply what I have learned to other contexts? Due ____________ .

 

**Prepare the final draft of your report. Include a Works Cited page of your sources. The entire report consists of source analysis, introduction, and conclusion (excluding the Works Cited page.) Due ________ .

 

Grading Criteria

1. Proposal & Question due: 20 points
2. Research (2 copies) due: 30 points (including Revision)
3. Writer’s Statement due: 40points
4. Reflection due: 10 points.

**When submitting the final draft, you must attach (in the order listed)