Minimum Requirements According to

Professor Hinshaw, Director of Writing Programs

They have to use Emerging as the major text of the class. They need to do a minimum of 4 essays, a minimum of 4 readings from Emerging, and a maximum of 6 essays/readings.

SPRING 2017 STANDARD SEQUENCE:

Duhigg, Konnikova, O’Connor, & van Houtryve.

REMINDERS: Review the 1102 section of EAT.

Mandatory Workshop/1102 Orientation on 12/7.

(For Colleagues, Portfolios, Job Search)

Title: Personal Position Project

Description: The personal position project is designed to be the first major writing project in an honors composition course for freshmen. Because the theme of the course is “the rhetoric of politics” (designed around the 2008 presidential election), this first assignment sequence is designed to familiarize students with various types of media associated with the elections. In addition, students will learn various strategies for analyzing political messages, identifying underlying cultural assumptions, and examining the cultural narratives from which politicians/speakers draw on shared values to gain support.

Texts: Fulltext and video of nomination acceptance speeches from the Democratic and Republican national conventions; YouTube clips demonstrating rhetorical appeals; chapters from textbook Civic Literacy (“Citizen Writers,” “Take A Stand,” “Political Persuasion”).

Prewriting Assignment Descriptions:

1. reading response that identifies ethos, pathos, and logos in a political speech and comments on the ethics of the speakers use of appeals.
2. topic selection strategy that asks students to list various subjects that are of interest to them and that they are familiar with; description of personal dissonances.
3. focused free writing that asks students to interrogate one of their own cultural assumptions related to their topic and explores the various cultural narratives that might have contributed to their development.

Essay Prompt:

Sorry. I don’t do prompts. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus.

Questions for Consideration:

• Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, denim?
• Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi?
• Nam eget dui. Etiam rhoncus. Maecenas tempus, tellus eget condimentum rhoncus, sem quam semper libero, sit amet adipiscing sem neque sed ipsum. Nam quam nunc, blandit vel, luctus pulvinar, hendrerit id, lorem?
• Maecenas nec odio et ante tincidunt tempus. Donec vitae sapien ut libero venenatis faucibus. Nullam quis ante. Etiam sit amet orci eget eros faucibus tincidunt. Duis leo?

(For Students)

This is an informational outline of the requirements for the personal position project. All aspects of the project will be discussed in class.

Project Description:

The personal position essay project will ask you to take a personal position as you explore a public issue. During the course of the project cycle, you will engage in various invention strategies to select a topic and make some discoveries about your own position towards the issue. You are encouraged to select a topic that you are interested in, but do not yet have a position on (you might discover your position during prewriting exercises—remember, writing is a way to create new knowledge!).

During this first project cycle, I hope that you can see that writing is difficult intellectual work. Serious writing doesn’t necessarily involve filling in the blanks of a pre-organized five paragraph essay. I expect that during your invention strategies, you will struggle and become frustrated. This is expected (and it means you’re doing the difficult work of critical thinking!). In this class, please remember that we use writing as a means to create new knowledge. This way of thinking about writing assumes that you might become confused and frustrated at some points, that you won’t always have the “answers” to your inquiries, and that you don’t automatically know what you want to say before you put pen to paper.

Project Learning Objectives:

• to understand new ways of thinking about writing, for critical thinking and for the discovery of new meaning
• to engage with a “conversation”
• to explore the value of personal writing
• to examine dissonance
• to use invention strategies
• to participate in peer review and writing workshops
• to identify personal patterns of error
• to understand a text as an evolving work that might constantly be updated and improved through reflection, research, and revision.

Guidelines for Topic Selection:

• The issue must be a public, knowable issue (not everyone needs to be familiar with it, but it must be an issue that we could read about somewhere on the internet).
• The issue must affect you in some way.
• You must undertake an exploration of your position on the issue
• Your exploration of the issue must have some “greater significance,” which you will explore during prewriting strategies.
• Remember, this isn’t an argument paper, per se. Think of it as an exploration of an issue.

Your polished draft (worth 50 points), must be typed (Times New Roman 12 point font, 1 inch margins) and be 5-6 pages in length. Of course, you are encouraged to read about your topic, but no formal research is required for the polished draft.

Project Schedule/Calendar
	DUE	IN CLASS
W 9/3	Civic Literacy Ch 1 Civic Literacy Ch 15, 16	Positioning Ourselves as Citizen Writers Freewriting
M 9/8	Civic Literacy Ch 6 unSpun Ch 1 A1: Platform Analysis	Questioning Cultural Assumptions PPP Cultural Assumptions Strategy Intro to Personal Positions Essay Topic Selection, Invention Strategies
W 9/10	Civic Literacy Ch 4 Reading: “This I Believe” (NPR) PPP Topic Selection Strategy PPP Reader/Writer Positioning Strategy	Organizing, Drafting
M 9/15	Reading: Sample Positions Essay PPP Focusing/Organizing Strategy	Peer Review Guidelines Workshop, Personal Positions Essay
W 9/17	unSpun Ch 2, Ch 3 PPP Polished Draft	Spotlight Drafts discussion Peer Review Revision Strategies
M 9/22	PPP Revision Plan
W 9/24	PPP Polished Draft to Instructor
M 9/29	PPP Final Draft Due