assignments ENGL 226 Writing About Writing: Professional Writing Project
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Overview
One thing that is unfortunately true about the writing you do for school is that there is no close translation to writing in the world. There are many reasons for this, but the biggest two reasons are genre and audience. The essay is a purely an academic genre—and the five paragraph essay is the worst example of it. I can promise you that you will never write an essay in a workplace setting. And when you write for school, your audience is almost always your teacher—and audience of one—who is giving you a grade. There are no grades in the working world. There are raises and censures and hiring and firing, sure, but that’s not the same as grades.
To experience what writing professionally can look like, you need experience writing for an audience that is not just your teacher and you need to consider the various writing demands that writing professionally and not academically requires. This Professional Writing Project is meant to help you to get that experience.
Details
How the assignment will be organized: To better mimic how one might work in a professional writing job, you will be put in to small teams of three. There will be six groups of three in the class. Selection will be random. There will be three jobs spread out among the six groups—so 2 groups per job. Groups will go head to head presenting their materials to a a panel of experts that will help to evaluate which presentation is the most effective.
What the three jobs are
What you need to produce as an individual
How you will be evaluated for this assignment
The Professional Writing Project is worth 15% of your final grade. In order to earn a "B" for that 15% you must
In order to earn an “A” grade for the 15%, you must
One thing that is unfortunately true about the writing you do for school is that there is no close translation to writing in the world. There are many reasons for this, but the biggest two reasons are genre and audience. The essay is a purely an academic genre—and the five paragraph essay is the worst example of it. I can promise you that you will never write an essay in a workplace setting. And when you write for school, your audience is almost always your teacher—and audience of one—who is giving you a grade. There are no grades in the working world. There are raises and censures and hiring and firing, sure, but that’s not the same as grades.
To experience what writing professionally can look like, you need experience writing for an audience that is not just your teacher and you need to consider the various writing demands that writing professionally and not academically requires. This Professional Writing Project is meant to help you to get that experience.
Details
How the assignment will be organized: To better mimic how one might work in a professional writing job, you will be put in to small teams of three. There will be six groups of three in the class. Selection will be random. There will be three jobs spread out among the six groups—so 2 groups per job. Groups will go head to head presenting their materials to a a panel of experts that will help to evaluate which presentation is the most effective.
What the three jobs are
- Create materials to encourage students from majors other than English to pursue a writing and writing studies minor.
- Create materials that explain to English majors how to get an internship.
- Create materials that encourages Writing & Writing Studies Concentration students to pursue honors in the major.
- Media for your job. This might include print materials, video, social media, materials for the website
- A one-page, single-spaced executive summary (this document should look like a professional document and not a student paper).
- An overview of what you understand about the needs of your audience: what do they need to understand/what are the obstacles to getting them to understand?
- A rational for the choices you made in terms of what media to use.
- A plan for how to effectively disseminate the information/media you’ve produced.
- A 10 minute presentation pitch that showcases the media you’ve produced and makes an an oral/visual argument for why you think your materials will accomplish the job. To do this, be sure to include your audience analysis as part of your argument.
What you need to produce as an individual
- On the day of your presentation, you’ll turn in a 500-750 word, double-spaced reflection on your work on the project. Answer these questions:
- What have you learned about the difference between professional writing and writing for the classroom?
- What have you learned about how they are similar?
- What aspects of writing for school can be seen as practicefor writing professionally?
How you will be evaluated for this assignment
The Professional Writing Project is worth 15% of your final grade. In order to earn a "B" for that 15% you must
- Be a responsible and considerate group member
- Produce a comprehensive set of materials that address the “what you need to produce as a group” section explained above.
- Participate in the in-class work time and in-class workshop, including the pre-workshop reflection and the post-workshop revision plan.
- Participate in whatever fashion your group decides appropriate (not everyone has to talk but everyone needs to contribute).
- Be a good audience member for the other groups presenting.
In order to earn an “A” grade for the 15%, you must
- Do all of the things required for the B grade
- Attend a zoom group conference to get feedback on your project
- Demonstrate in your final materials a serious consideration of the key ideas we will study as part of learning about professional writing:
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In order to earn a “C” grade for the 15%, you must
If you do not meet the requirements for the "C" grade you will earn and "F" for this 15% of your final grade.
- Be a responsible and considerate group member
- Produce a comprehensive set of materials that address the “what you need to produce as a group” section explained above.
- Participate in whatever fashion your group decides appropriate (not everyone has to talk but everyone needs to contribute).
- Be a good audience member for the other groups presenting.
If you do not meet the requirements for the "C" grade you will earn and "F" for this 15% of your final grade.