Week 12: 4/19-23

All,

This week, we will be launching into Unit 3. As such, I’d like to you do the following:

Read (by Wed. 4/21)

The Unit 3 Assignment page

Schools Are Killing Curiosity by Wendy Berliner

Watch (ASAP, if wanted)

Unit 3 Video Explainer 

(I made this last semester, but the assignment remains the same. Skip to 1:25 to start, the first part is about their particular weekly timing.)

Write (By Friday @ 5 PM)

As we move past Unit 2, where you learned the new genre of the annotated bibliography, it’s time now to revisit what we know about genres. As you read in Kerry Dirk’s essay on “Navigating Genres,” genres of text are as diverse as a country song and an analytical essay. All genres have a set of rules/conventions that they adhere to, yes, but perhaps more importantly, all genres have certain strengths and certain weaknesses. For example, a country song would be a questionable genre to analyze the latest jump in the stock market; just as an analytical essay would be an odd (if hilarious) genre for one’s thoughts on a recent heartbreak.

In Unit 3, it will be your task to take the research and topic you used in Unit 2 and write in a new genre. This cannot be a traditional academic essay, and I’m asking you to be a little creative. But most importantly, I’m asking you to be critical in your judgment about what genre you choose. If you are writing about climate change, you could write a press release from the White House. If you are writing about video games/film/music, you could write a longform review.

For this informal writing assignment, I want you to brainstorm 3 possible ideas for this next assignment, and explain why each of them would be more effective given your particular topic than a traditional academic essay, and fun to write. 300 words minimum!

Publish your posts by Friday at 5 PM, using the “Unit 3” category tag.