ENGL389 Topics in Writing: YA Writing Workshop
Assignments: Author Presentation
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Overview
One of the ways we learn to be better writers is to read deeply in a genre. And it helps to locate authors whose stories you appreciate. Not that you want to imitate them, more that you want to be inspired by them, learn from them. Pay attention to how they make their writing come alive. For this assignment, I'm not asking you to read deeply in one author for the class, but to identify a writer you've liked or think you would like and tell us something about who they are. You must choose a writer writing in the YA genre specifically.
Details
There are two parts to this low-stakes assignment: 1) a short report of 750-1000 words (or roughly 3 to 4 pages) on the author and 2) a short presentation of roughly 5 minutes during the last day of class on that is a summary of your report (you can't read your entire paper in 5 minutes, but you can share portions of it--up to two double-spaced pages).
What to include in your 750-1000 word report:
ADDITIONALLY: ver the Like I said, on the last day of class, you'll turn in the hard copy of your report and you'll have roughly 5 minutes to share what your learned/like about this author.
HOW YOU WILL BE EVALUATED ON YOUR AUTHOR PRESENTATION
Your Author Presentation is worth 10% of your final grade. There are only three grades for this last project:
One of the ways we learn to be better writers is to read deeply in a genre. And it helps to locate authors whose stories you appreciate. Not that you want to imitate them, more that you want to be inspired by them, learn from them. Pay attention to how they make their writing come alive. For this assignment, I'm not asking you to read deeply in one author for the class, but to identify a writer you've liked or think you would like and tell us something about who they are. You must choose a writer writing in the YA genre specifically.
Details
There are two parts to this low-stakes assignment: 1) a short report of 750-1000 words (or roughly 3 to 4 pages) on the author and 2) a short presentation of roughly 5 minutes during the last day of class on that is a summary of your report (you can't read your entire paper in 5 minutes, but you can share portions of it--up to two double-spaced pages).
What to include in your 750-1000 word report:
- Provide a short biography of your writer--where they are from, anything you can find out about their career, their education, anything they might have said about being a writer or the act of writing.
- Information about what they've written. Include how many texts and what kind they are. Include information about how well-reviewed they are and/or if they have been successful (for instance selling a lot of copies on the NYT best sellers list or having a movie made out of it).
- Indicate if they've won any awards
- Write about why you like this author--this is broad; could be the kinds of stories they write, characters, style, etc.
- Write about how this writer is YA. This should not be too hard, consider the characteristics of the genre that we've talked about all semester long.
ADDITIONALLY: ver the Like I said, on the last day of class, you'll turn in the hard copy of your report and you'll have roughly 5 minutes to share what your learned/like about this author.
HOW YOU WILL BE EVALUATED ON YOUR AUTHOR PRESENTATION
Your Author Presentation is worth 10% of your final grade. There are only three grades for this last project:
- You earn an A for this project if you successfully provide information for all bullets above in 750-1000 words and present for five minutes in class.
- You earn an C for this project if you do not turn in a report that does not meet the requirements above or do not present in class for five minutes.
- You will fail this 10% if you don't do either.