assignments ENGL 101 Writing Rhetorically: THE BIG TALK
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LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 ltorda@bridgew.edu www.leetorda.com |
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Overview. You’ve probably heard the phrase “The Big Talk” referring to that awkward conversation kids have with their parents about you know what. Or maybe, now that you are a little older, it’s what you say when you refer to that conversation you are dreading having with a significant other who isn’t going to be very significant for very much longer. In both of these instances, the phrase refers to a conversation you have with another person where someone learns something. And it is for that reason that it is the right title for our first paper.
As you will read in the essays we are studying in class, you will see that we the reader learn something—a lot of something—about the people that are the focus of the essay. We learn about them in different ways, but one thing that is central to the essays is that the writer talked to the person they are writing about. Sometimes they talked to other people about the person they were writing about as well. And sometimes they observed the person doing things in order to figure things out about them. So, in other words, they interviewed and observed a subject (a person) in order to figure something out about them. This is the first important thing you should remember about how to do this first paper.
You also get a sense in all of these essays that the writer didn’t know everything there was to know about his or her subject. They were doing the interviewing and making the observations and doing the research to try to figure something out about their subject. This is the second important thing you should remember about how to do this paper.
Finally, to help you to do a great job with this paper, I'm going to give you some parameters for what to build questions for your interview about. Try to ask this person how they would define a successful life and in what ways they've lived that successful life, what they still want/need to do to live it, what parts of a successful life they aren't sure how to get a hold of. We will take time in class to develop good questions around this idea of what a successful life looks like.
Details
1) Interview your person. For this assignment, you will be assigned a BSU alum as your interview subject. You'll get the name and email address of your person via your BSU email account sometime around the time we start to talk about this first assignment. You will need to reach out to them and arrange an interview that is convenient for both of you. You are welcome to meet with your interviewee, but you can accomplish this essay via email and or skype as well. You need to write about five pages about your assigned person.
Because these folks are BSU alum, they have a particular connection to you. You are at the beginning of something they've already been through. It would be easy to make this essay about "what should I do at BSU," but that's not really what I want you to find out. I want you to learn about who these people are and how they got there. So, the question you are trying to answer is more like what's your life like? Are you happy with it? What have you done to make your life this way? This isn't an advertisement for Bridgewater. This isn't a survival guide to college. It's about the long view.
2) Interview. After you’ve contacted your person, you need to spend some time getting to know them. You need to talk to them (interview them). This is data collection. The information you collect from interviewing and spending time with this person will help you write the paper. Without it, it will be impossible to write this paper. We will develop a set of questions as a class that each of you will ask your interviewees. You should expect to add questions to that first list, but be sure to include these class-developed questions as well. Data collection is perhaps the most important step in writing a very good paper.
3) Write up what you’ve figured out into an Essay. Finally, you’ll look at all your data that you’ve collected, you’ll think about your original questions and interest in this person, and you’ll develop an essay that helps a reader understand what you’ve figured out. Your thesis, the main point of your paper, will be what you think you’ve figured out. Your proof, the stuff in your essay that proves your thesis, will be drawn from your interviews and observations.
Please remember that this is an essay and not a list of questions and answers. We'll work on developing an essay out of your raw material in class. Additionally, we will compare data--compare the answers you've gotten from your interviewees--in class to try to come up with some (loose) quantitative data about what BSU alums say about what their life is like and how they got there.
In-Class Partner Interviews. To help you figure out how to both form a question about a person, gather data, and then come up with a thesis and, thus, a paper from it, you’ll be partnered up with a classmate to interview and write about. You’ll share this interview with the class. It’s an ice breaker, sure, but it will also help you write your first paper. It’s practice. I’ll give you more information about this assignment in class.
Other things:
As you will read in the essays we are studying in class, you will see that we the reader learn something—a lot of something—about the people that are the focus of the essay. We learn about them in different ways, but one thing that is central to the essays is that the writer talked to the person they are writing about. Sometimes they talked to other people about the person they were writing about as well. And sometimes they observed the person doing things in order to figure things out about them. So, in other words, they interviewed and observed a subject (a person) in order to figure something out about them. This is the first important thing you should remember about how to do this first paper.
You also get a sense in all of these essays that the writer didn’t know everything there was to know about his or her subject. They were doing the interviewing and making the observations and doing the research to try to figure something out about their subject. This is the second important thing you should remember about how to do this paper.
Finally, to help you to do a great job with this paper, I'm going to give you some parameters for what to build questions for your interview about. Try to ask this person how they would define a successful life and in what ways they've lived that successful life, what they still want/need to do to live it, what parts of a successful life they aren't sure how to get a hold of. We will take time in class to develop good questions around this idea of what a successful life looks like.
Details
1) Interview your person. For this assignment, you will be assigned a BSU alum as your interview subject. You'll get the name and email address of your person via your BSU email account sometime around the time we start to talk about this first assignment. You will need to reach out to them and arrange an interview that is convenient for both of you. You are welcome to meet with your interviewee, but you can accomplish this essay via email and or skype as well. You need to write about five pages about your assigned person.
Because these folks are BSU alum, they have a particular connection to you. You are at the beginning of something they've already been through. It would be easy to make this essay about "what should I do at BSU," but that's not really what I want you to find out. I want you to learn about who these people are and how they got there. So, the question you are trying to answer is more like what's your life like? Are you happy with it? What have you done to make your life this way? This isn't an advertisement for Bridgewater. This isn't a survival guide to college. It's about the long view.
2) Interview. After you’ve contacted your person, you need to spend some time getting to know them. You need to talk to them (interview them). This is data collection. The information you collect from interviewing and spending time with this person will help you write the paper. Without it, it will be impossible to write this paper. We will develop a set of questions as a class that each of you will ask your interviewees. You should expect to add questions to that first list, but be sure to include these class-developed questions as well. Data collection is perhaps the most important step in writing a very good paper.
3) Write up what you’ve figured out into an Essay. Finally, you’ll look at all your data that you’ve collected, you’ll think about your original questions and interest in this person, and you’ll develop an essay that helps a reader understand what you’ve figured out. Your thesis, the main point of your paper, will be what you think you’ve figured out. Your proof, the stuff in your essay that proves your thesis, will be drawn from your interviews and observations.
Please remember that this is an essay and not a list of questions and answers. We'll work on developing an essay out of your raw material in class. Additionally, we will compare data--compare the answers you've gotten from your interviewees--in class to try to come up with some (loose) quantitative data about what BSU alums say about what their life is like and how they got there.
In-Class Partner Interviews. To help you figure out how to both form a question about a person, gather data, and then come up with a thesis and, thus, a paper from it, you’ll be partnered up with a classmate to interview and write about. You’ll share this interview with the class. It’s an ice breaker, sure, but it will also help you write your first paper. It’s practice. I’ll give you more information about this assignment in class.
Other things:
- Papers should be about 5 pages, double-spaced, in 10 or 12 point fonts, with one inch margins all the way around.
- Do not use a cover page. Instead, put your name, date and ENGL101 in the upper left corner and call it a day.
- Always, always, always have a title. A good one.
- See syllabus for specific dates regarding the workshop for the draft of this paper and due date when you will turn it in to me.
- You will get feedback on the draft you turn in to me and will be expected to revise this piece for the midterm portfolio.
