Sample Assignments

Sample English 120 and English 121 Assignments

Below you'll find two assignments from English 120 and English 121. The first in each set is distributed at the beginning of the semester; the second in the fifth or sixth week of the term. Feel free to read through the assignments, and the notes to the right, to get an idea of what kinds of work students in each course do during the semester.

Engaging Subjects, Genres, and Audiences

ENGL 120 LE1 – Engaging Subjects, Genres, and Audiences

Writing strategies we’re working on here: Rhetorical analysis: analyzing audience expectations (readers of your genres, class colleagues), balancing audience expectations with your own. Critical thinking, reading, and writing: identifying and analyzing genres, using evidence from text (the genres you select), developing ideas through writing and reading. Processes: using writing and reading to develop ideas, working collaboratively on writing, reflecting on your writing processes. Knowledge of conventions: understanding conventions of various genres, using conventions associated with standard written English, practice using citation systems. Use of technology: Using computers to draft written work.

Readings:

"Introduction" to Reading and Writing the College Experience
"R. Nathan, "Academically Speaking" (we’ll use this as we move into LE2)

Everyone is a writer of something. In college, you’re going to be asked to be a writer of many things – essays of different shapes and sizes, lab reports, memos, e-mails, blog entries, journals, and all kinds of other things. And that’s just for classes! You’ll also likely write – continue to write, really – loads of things for yourself.

One of the keys to being a successful college writer is thinking about what you already know about writing – which is a lot – and thinking about how to move those things you know from one place (that is, one kind of writing, one way of thinking about writing…) to another. We’re going to start working on the analysis that can help you with that thinking in this LE.

For this paper, choose one SUBJECT that inspires you to write one GENRE in which you are inspired to write about that subject, and the AUDIENCE for that genre. (Remember: a genre is a kind of writing, so you can have several examples of a genre.) For example, if I were doing this assignment I would say that a SUBJECT that inspires me to write is people criticizing students’ abilities as writers, and one GENRE in which I am inspired to write (because I am a big geek) is articles within my field of composition. The audience for these articles are other geeky teachers of composition. But I am a geek and you are not – so your SUBJECTS and GENRES should be things YOU like and the audience one you know.

Then, for this paper, think through and write about the questions:

What is one subject that inspires you to write, and why?

In what genre do you like to write about this thing?

Who is the audience for your work in this genre?

What do you know about this genre and about the audience to do a good job with the writing, and what does it mean to do that good job?

When you respond to these questions, you’ll want to have SPECIFIC examples of writing in of the genre that you’ve chosen – probably somewhere between 2-4 of them. Ideally these will be things that YOU have written in this genre. We’ll work on analyzing these examples (and your work to produce them) in class. For now, know that it will be VERY important to use examples from the work that you bring in for your LE. The key to a really strong genre here is that you be very detailed and specific – which means that you’ll need to think hard about this thing that you like so much! (We’ll do it together, of course!!) In other words, you want to go way beyond the kind of quick sketch I’ve outlined here. WHAT makes you care about what you do? WHAT do you write about it? WHAT are the rules for that writing? WHO is the audience? Sights, sounds and smells… that’s what we want.

To respond to this question with the kind of detail that will help you to analyze your own knowledge and help others understand it as well, you’ll need between 4-5 pages of finished text.

Short Essays:

A reminder about short essays. SEs are places for you to focus on getting down your (smart, cool) ideas. These are brainstorming drafts where you’re starting to think about the questions in the LE. You can use the ideas here for that LE, and I’ll give you feedback as you work based on the ideas here. What you want to do here is write – fast, focused, and concentrated. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, “grammar,” or other things that hang you up. If readers don’t understand the ideas here, we’ll ask you. Plan on spending an hour writing these SEs and try to write (on a computer) 2 double-spaced pages.

SE1A

In this short essay, take on the first chunk of the LE assignment. What inspires you to write, and how do you like to write about it? Here, really dig into that subject. Why is it compelling? Moving? Motivating? And what genres do you produce that are about it? What are some examples (from your writing) of these genres? What were their subjects, focuses, etc.?

SE1B

In this SE, take on the second chunk of the question. Choose 1-2 examples of the genre that you like to write and really focus on the rules – the conventions – of that genre. What do you need to do in/with it to do a good job? What do you need to do with/in its content, form, and style? How have you done these – that is, how does this piece illustrate that?

Again, these SEs can be “rough drafts” for your LE – and I’ll give you fast feedback to help you develop that project.

Your submission draft packet for this assignment should include the following items:

LE1 submission draft
Reflection letter
SEs A and B
Reader review letter
All other writing and drafts for LE1

***

English 120: Long Essay Three

For this assignment you will be exploring how conventions are used in visual media in order to reach difference audiences.

Readings: Mims and Nollen, “Deconstructing Media”; Jean Kilbourne, “In Your Face . . . All Over the Place”; Deborah Tannen, “There is No Unmarked Woman” (Reading and Writing College Exp.); Eric Tyrone McLeod, “Selling Out: Consumer Culture and Commodification of the Male Body”

This assignments builds on strategies we've worked on this term to analyze audience expectations and consider what genres audiences both expect and are comfortable with. Following that analysis, you'll create a genre - using appropriate strategies - for the audience you have identified, and analyze what decisions you made in the creation of your text.

You'll work on this essay in stages, beginning with the short essays. Because you can't work on the LE without the SEs, the SE assignments appear before the LE assignment here.

SE3A– 3 full pages. For this SE, find two advertisements for the same product (deodorant, energy bars, cars, cleaning products... whatever you choose) that are intended for different audiences. The best way to find these is to look in different kinds of magazines that are intended for different audiences (think: a deodorant ad in Men's Health and one in Better Homes and Gardens, for example).

Once you've located the ads, analyze them carefully. What conventions are used? What messages are the ads intended to send, and how do the conventions contribute to the messages? In order to do this effectively you will need to be able to thoroughly address the following elements of each ad:

What is the central focus of your ad? Is the central focus an obvious choice?

Why or why not? Why might the advertiser have chosen this as the central focus?

What do you see? Explain every convention used (color, layout, size of

objects/text, locations of objects/text, etc)

What are the ads selling? What messages does the ad send to do this? Is it

sending messages not directly related to the product?

What is the role of the text? What does it say? What does it imply? If your ad doesn’t have any text, why do you think this is?

What magazine does the ad appear in? Who is the target audience? (You willneed to include evidence from the magazine to support your conclusions such as, the magazine title or reference to articles mentioned in the magazine.)

How do the conventions of your ad (color, layout, location, etc) help it fit the interests and needs of the target audience? If they don’t fit, why don’t they fit. If the product does not seem a natural choice for the magazine’s audience, what does the advertiser do to make the ad more appealing for that audience?

What message is your ad sending? How do you know?

For WE1, you will need to be able to apply these questions to both of your ads. You will also need to discuss the differences between these ads. You'll also need to support your claims through evidence. In some cases, you will be using the same types of evidence you used in your LE2; in other words, you will be using evidence from your advertisements to support your claims.

WE2 – 2 pages. For your WE1 you looked at two different magazines and consequently two different audiences. In your second exploration, you are going to develop a third audience. To do this you will need to interview someone who is not a member of this class and find out what they might be interested in. Don’t worry too much about this yet -- we'll work together in class to create interview questions that will help you get the answers you need as painlessly as possible.

For WE.2 you will need to turn in your interview transcript and an analysis of your interview findings. You will need to be able to talk about the interests of your audience and what is important to them. You are working on establishing your audience, the more information you have about your audience the easier this will be. Once we have compiled interview questions as a class, we will decide what questions specifically need to be included as part of your WE2.

Next, for your LE3, you'll need to make an ad.

Using the techniques you practiced when analyzing the advertisements for your product, you are going to create an ad for your audience. You will need to use the same product as your WE1 and you will direct your ad toward the audience you established in WE2. You will not be drawing your ad; your ad will be a collage of visual images, photographs, or text, collected from magazines, photographs, or the internet (think of things you can cut). You will need to create an ad based on the expectations of your audience.

Long Essay 3! For your long essay you will use the knowledge you have gained through writing WE1 and WE2 to compose an essay that explores how conventions are used in textual and visual media. In addition to the questions below, you should also consider applying the questions you addressed for your WE1 to your created ad.

How do the advertisements you found use conventions to appeal to the interests and needs of their audiences?

How did you apply what you have learned about conventions and audience to the creation of your own ad?

What was your target audience? What decisions did you have to make to shape for that audience?

Which conventions did you choose to use and why? How did you use them, and what role(s) do they play?

Though the use of evidence in this paper is similar to the evidence you used in your LE2 (examples from the ads to support your claims), there is another important element of evidence that you will need to consider. For this paper, you will also need to incorporate evidence from one of the readings, in the form of a purposeful quote, into your long paper. You will also need to include quotes from your interview to establish your audience. We will discuss this further as we come closer to writing LE3.

Writing strategies we will be working on for this assignment: analyzing audience expectations; making conscious choices in writing that take those expectations into consideration; critical thinking; analyzing written texts; using evidence from texts to develop and support analysis; working through a process to develop your ideas; developing flexible strategies through writing; reflecting on writing processes; examining writing as a constant state of revision; learning citation practices, editing

English 121 - LE2 - Community Connections

Required readings and other materials for this assignment:

Wideman
Ballenger
Your CRJ observation notes
An interview with someone in your chosen community
Your library research

Particulars for this assignment: 6– 8 typed, double-spaced pages, 12 font, 1 inch margins all around

This essay will require extensive research, both within your community observations and the library. As Ballenger puts it, the inquiry-based essay is “an essay that is less an opportunity to prove something than an attempt to find out.” You will focus on your community observations, and you will work with the connections you’ve observed within your community. You will research your chosen subject using Halle Library, incorporate your field notes, and conduct an interview with a community member to develop this essay.

The most important part of the inquiry-based essay is developing the question you want to answer about your community within your essay. The Ballenger reading will help guide you to the type of question you want to ask. This essay should answer these questions:

What is your chosen community and topic?
Why is it important to you?
What have you learned through your research?
How is what you’ve learned important, and to whom?

You will most likely develop the question this essay will answer through your community observations. This essay must incorporate at least five different sources. You MUST include evidence from:

Field notes/observations
Four library-based sources from periodicals catalogued in the EMU library database
An interview with a community insider about the question you’ve chosen as your focus

And either:

An artifact that represents something about the question you’ve chosen to write about
An outside source for a specific audience that is intended to help that audience understand you and/or your community or your question – a brochure, a flyer, or some other approved source for a specific audience

This question is where the work you did for LE1 will become useful for this essay. The reason we focused so much on stereotypes should help guide you to the research question for this essay. Although your question for this essay does not need to be based on the stereotypes of your community, focusing on those stereotypes will provide you with a basis to consider what connects people within your community.

Work leading up to LE2:

Tentative proposal for your research question – due 1/29, 1 – 2 typed pages

This proposal will be based on the observations you’ve done so far. Hopefully, something within your community observations has inspired the desire for further inquiry into a specific aspect of your community. The proposal should discuss the question you hope to answer, how you came up with the question, and how you hope to answer the question in your research.

Revised proposal – due 2/3 at the end of class

The revised proposal should be a more specific question that you determine based on your observations and library research. It should discuss the same ideas as the tentative proposal, but will hopefully be a more finely tuned presentation of the question your research will attempt to answer.

SE2A – due 2/5, 2 – 3 typed pages

This short essay will be an attempt to answer your specific question about your community, using your field notes as evidence. You will need to pose the question, show how you came up with the question based on your observations, and what you imagine at this point the answer to that question is.

SE2B – due 2/10, 2 – 3 typed pages

This short essay will continue the attempt to answer the question, using the library research you’ve done involving the community you’re observing. You will use the same guidelines mentioned above for SE2A.

You will use these short essays, as well as the interview and either the artifact or outside source, to develop a solid, researched 5 – 7 page LE2. Because of the many sources you will be using for this essay, you will develop an MLA Works Cited page, and cite your sources throughout the text, also using MLA format. Work hard and have fun!

Notes on these assignments

ENGL 120 Assignment:

LE1 - Long Essay One; the first longer essay in a four long essay assignment sequence in ENGL 120

Writing strategies- Specific aspects of the course outcomes that this assignment is intended to address

SE1A and SE1B - Two shorter essays, usually 1 1/2 - 2 pages, that are written as steps in the process of creating LE1

LE1 Draft - The first draft of the long essay; students are able to revise these before turning in the submission packet essay

Submission Packet - Includes all the work done leading up to the revised draft, including both short essays, the first draft of LE1, the revised draft of LE1, a reflective letter written by the student about the writing process, and any notes or other relevant material

Readings - These will vary from assignment to assignment and instructor to instructor; most ENGL 120 instructors use a reader specifically created for teaching ENGL 120

Particulars - ENGL 120 LE1 essays usually follow the 4 - 5 page, double-spaced 12 font format

The Assignment - The paragraphs to the left give the background and description of the assignment, as well as the purpose of the assignment. In this case, students are exploring their histories with literacy and learning, and using the readings for the assignment to help them reflect on their experiences

SE1A and SE1B - The paragraph to the left explains more thoroughly the purpose of writing the two shorter essays, and gives a brief description of what each essay entails

SE1A - The first short essay written for this assignment; these first short essays usually ask students to reflect on their personal experiences on their own, before they start using the readings as reflections

SE1B - The second short essay written for this assignment; these second short essays typically ask students to analyze and interpret the readings for the assignment, why the readings are relevant, why they are important to the authors who wrote them

English 120 Long Essay Three Assignment

This assignment is typical of the third LE in English 120. That assignment, distributed to students in the sixth or seventh week of the semester, asks students to apply the theoretical frameworks and ideas about genres, conventions, and strategies to a text that they have created.

English 121 Assignment:

LE2 - Long Essay Two; the second longer essay in a three long essay assignment sequence in ENGL 121. The sample to the left is an inquiry-based assignment

Drafts, Submission Packets, and Short Essays - Purposes and Particulars for these in ENGL 121 are the same as those listed above for ENGL 120

Readings - These will vary from instructor to instructor - there is no particular reader that is commonly used by instructors for ENGL 121. The focus of ENGL 121 is observing communities, but what aspect of the communities the students in the class focus on as a theme is up to the instructor. Instructors will often create a coursepack containing readings pertinent to their class themes

CRJ Observation Notes - When observing communities, students will keep a log of the observations they make within that community. The notes taken in this log will be used in the LE2 assignment

Interview - Each student in ENGL 121 will interview someone who belongs to the community being observed. Parts of these interviews will be incorporated into the LE2 assignment

Particulars - ENGL 121 LE2 assignments usually follow the 5 - 7 page, double-spaced, 12 font format

The Assignment - The paragraphs to the left give the background and description, as well as the source requirements, of the assignment. In this case, students are being asked to observe and report on the connections they see within their chosen communities - what connection is bringing the people together as a community.

It is typical to incorporate at least five sources in an LE2, which can include library-based periodicals, the interview, the CRJ observation notes, and another outside source, such as an artifact from within the community, a brochure, flyer, or another source approved by the instructor, as described in the paragraphs to the left.

The assignment students in ENGL 121 work on for LE1 has a clear connection to the LE2 assignment; all assignments in ENGL 121 are linked to each other by the theme the instructor has chosen for the class.

Tentative and Revised Proposals - These proposals are used to help students develop a clear direction for their LE2 assignments. After a few weeks of community observations, students should have an idea of what aspect of the community they plan to explore and learn more about. The tentative proposal should discuss the general question each student is going to focus on; the revised proposal should be a more specific, set focus question.

SE2A - The first of the short essays for an inquiry-based assignment asks students to begin the attempt to answer their questions, using the CRJ notes they've taken during their community observations.

SE2B - The second of the short essays for an inquiry-based assignment asks students to further attempt to answer their questions, this time using their library research sources.

The Whole Thing - The paragraph to the left describes everything the submission packet draft of LE2 should incorporate - SE2A and SE2B, the interview and other outside source, and a Works Cited page in MLA format.