Essay

WRI 101 ASSIGNMENT 3 — PROBLEM/SOLUTION

Proposal due: R, Oct. 30 Draft due—two hard copies: R, Nov. 6

Final due: T, Nov. 25 to Blackboard and to [email protected]

Weight: 20% (5% of which is prewriting and peer review work) This assignment may not be revised.

FORMAT: Minimum 1,500 words, double-spaced, 12-point TNR, 1” margins; put your name, my name,

the class, assignment number, and date in the upper left corner of the first page; staple and number

pages; have a title. Cite sources in MLA style.

BASIC INSTRUCTIONS: Look at the rhetoric and narratives and representations about education that are

at work in the world around you right now. Consider our essays and themes from Chapter 10, and

other things we’ve read and discussed during this unit. Identify what you see as a problematic way of

talking about something (or someone, or someplace). Explain why you’re convinced that

representation is a problem (thereby convincing us that it’s a problem) and offer a solution—a

different way of talking about it. Show us one story people are telling, then try to replace that story

with one you think is more fair, ethical, accurate, thoughtful, informed, complex, etc.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION: In A3, I’m not actually asking you to solve the problems of the world. I am

asking you to find a problem in how we talk about some particular thing. You may essays from the

Common Reader, but many others are available as well. primarily I want you to focus on conversations

and narratives you see in circulation right now in the world around you. While works of fiction also

shape our understandings of reality, for this assignment, stick to works of nonfiction. You can look at

current events and journalism publications, shows, and websites; documentary films and

photography; discipline-specific publications (science, history, culture, etc.) for both academic and

general audiences; memoirs and personal essays; speeches; and an endless range of other nonfiction

forms. You may look at any level from the global to the local, but whatever you choose, consider the

background and identity you’re writing from. What uniquely qualifies you to write about this subject

in a particular way? What can we see about this conversation through your eyes that we couldn’t see

through anyone else’s? Why?

Choose something that interests you, but try not to choose something you’re sure you’ve got all

figured out. Don’t choose a conversation that you’re afraid to change your mind about. Don’t simply

seek out sources that validate what you want to say and ignore anything that would contradict your

current, comfortable worldview. Give serious thought to ideas and arguments that will complicate

and question your own underlying philosophies and values. If those values are worth keeping, they’ll

stand up to the test, and they’ll be stronger and more developed for having been challenged.

As you work, you’ll discover deeper insights about your chosen conversation than you’ve realized

before. That’s part of the work here. You’ll arrive at much deeper ideas than you carry with you into

this assignment. Be open to that. Let us follow your curiosity and questioning with you. Avoid the

too-simple binary thoughts: like/dislike, agree/disagree, approve/disapprove, right/wrong,

good/bad. Life is never that simple. Seek complication. Embrace confusion and complexity. As you

work through that chaos, you’ll find patterns to give your thoughts order. This will be a long process.

You’ll have to put in a lot of work and a lot of writing that won’t appear in the final draft.

USE 2-4 PRIMARY SOURCES: Primary sources are the texts you analyze. These will be the sources you

use to show us an existing story that is being told. These will be the works of nonfiction in which you

see the problematic rhetoric at work. Primary sources can also be academic studies and original data

collected by professional researchers—again, things you analyze.

USE 3-5 SECONDARY SOURCES: These are other people’s analyses and arguments that you use to help

you develop your own analysis further. These are usually found in academic texts and scholarly

journals (easily available in digital library resources like Academic Search Complete.) Yes, you must also

handle these sources analytically, but they are tools you use to push your own ideas about the

primary texts to deeper conclusions. These can be people examining the same primary texts you

examine, or those with entirely different primary sources from you, but whose ideas are relevant to

yours. These should be quality, trustworthy sources. We’ll talk in class about how to identify and

work with them.

PROPOSAL:

Explaining what you want to do is a key step in actually doing it. Also, I want to make sure your topic

is plausible and narrow enough in scope before you get too far. Explain what you plan to do and how

you plan to do it. Explain which sources you’ll use and how. Include two key questions that are key

to your project. Include a working “Works Cited” list in MLA style.