Local Inquiry/Public Essay Assignment + Samples Posted

"Joining the Conversation: Local Inquiry and the Public Essay" has been uploaded to drop.io. In addition, below, six sample essays composed by fellow students and published online by The Coloradoan are available for download. Some appear as two files: one is suitable for printing, the other shows the text displayed alongside visual rhetoric and comments from readers. Note that while these samples generally achieve the purpose of the Local Inquiry/Public Essay, they do have shortcomings and should be read in the context of the assignment handout (above).

• essay_sample_evers.pdf
• essay_sample_evers_comments.pdf
• essay_sample_mckenna.pdf
• essay_sample_mckenna_comments.pdf
• essay_sample_mesereau.pdf
• essay_sample_kvols.pdf
• essay_sample_kvols_comments.pdf
• essay_sample_watanabe.pdf
• essay_sample_watanabe_comments.pdf

Extra Credit Assignment

• For the extra credit assignment, which will compensate for at least one unexcused absence, please choose to attend a live event featuring a speaker (many are listed online at websites such as CSU's "All University Events" calendar). Then, e-mail Raul a description of the event (see "Contact" in the sidebar), take detailed notes during the event (direct quotations will be valuable), and write a two-page rhetorical analysis.

• Think of this as a cohesive, miniature essay that utilizes prompts from our rhetorical situation handouts. As a well-organized, MLA-styled text, it shouldn't mimic the order of the prompts on the handouts but rather draw relationships between different aspects of the rhetorical situation––in an introduction, thesis, body paragraphs, a conclusion, and a "Works Cited" list, if necessary. In short, you'll be answering this question: what choices did the speaker make, and how effective were those choices, in context? Assume that your audience is academic but not knowledgeable about the situation you're analyzing.

• Update: the extra credit assignment is now due to Raul's mailbox on the third floor of Eddy Hall by 4:30 PM on Thursday, December 17.

Calendar Post for October 26 + Academic Argument Proposal Assignment Posted

• Browse each of our 14 wikis pages and recollect the readings we have encountered thus far, particularly those that put forward arguments. Then, just for practice, draft two questions-at-issue that might guide your upcoming paper, the Academic Argument. These questions should feel narrow, debatable, and significant both to you and an academic audience interested in climate change. For example, you might rephrase or make more specific questions on political science or foreign policy already researched on our wiki. You might also refine a question addressed by Thomas Friedman, "Why go green?" or Michael Pollan, "Why bother?"
  

• Read about argument and claims on pages 509-516 of the PHG. Then, much like we did in class on Friday, practice writing four possible claims in response to the two questions-at-issue you just drafted (use either question-at-issue, or both). These claims should include: a claim of fact or definition, a claim about cause and effect, a claim about value, and a claim about solutions or policies. Type these two questions and four claims, and post them on a Writing Studio forum ("Academic Argument: Two Questions, Four Claims"). You won’t necessarily use any of these claims for your final argument, so don’t worry about perfection.

• Read “The Argument Culture” by Deborah Tannen on pages 474-480 of the PHG. Be ready to talk about Tannen’s definition of “argument” and how it does or doesn’t coincide with your own ideas about arguments.

• Make sure to bring your four claims and your PHG to class on Monday, along with a handout on claims and "Proposal: From Inquiry to Argument" (at drop.io), which describes the first of two phases in our upcoming assignment.

Open Letter Assignment Correction

Our original Open Letter assignment handout incorrectly listed its value as 150 points. A revised handout (at drop.io) corrects that point total to 100, which is reflected in our syllabus.

Group Inquiry Assignment Posted

"Inquiring Further: Researching a Question-at-issue as a Group, with a Wiki" is now available as a handout. The "research log" and "stakeholder matrix" described in the assignment are also available at drop.io, along with a sample annotation and sample wiki page.

Open Letter Assignment + Texts Posted

A handout on our upcoming Open Letter assignment has been posted to drop.io:

• letter_assignment.pdf

Click here to browse some three dozen articles now available for consideration as "supplementary" or "outside" texts in your Open Letter. Look for the "text" tag in the list of files at drop.io.

If you're interested, examples of letters (by Raul Moreno and Student Doe) have also been posted to drop.io. (These examples address an author rather than a member of government.)

Recall that your Open Letter can address a member of the Obama adminstration's Cabinet, a member of a U.S. Senate or U.S. House committee, or a leader in the Senate or House.

Update: Guidance on how to address those officials, both on your envelope and within your Open Letter, is offered by the Executive Secretariat of the National Institutes of Health.

Syllabus + Readings + Academic Summary Assignment Posted

Our syllabus, three articles distributed in class today, and a handout on our upcoming Academic Summary assignment have been posted to drop.io:

• moreno_co150_policies.pdf

• reading_lydersen_scientists_pace.pdf

• reading_bbc_global_warming.pdf

• reading_pollan_why_bother.pdf

• summary_assignment.pdf

PHG pages 176 to 187 ("Responses to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change") have also been posted to drop.io.