Author: Olivia Wood

Reminders for tomorrow (9/21)

As I have now had 2 negative rapid tests, am feeling better, and will receive PCR results tomorrow morning, we WILL have regular class tomorrow morning.

Please remember to SUBMIT YOUR DRAFTS via the peer review portal on Blackboard BEFORE class time (I have double checked that the time is correct this time, the submission portal will close at 9:45, to give y’all a buffer period).

If you want to discuss your drafts in-person with classmates again, upload it here on the course site with “second draft” in the title.

Note about grades

I’ve begun catching up on grades, including inputting 0s into Blackboard. So, a couple things:

  • You are still welcome to complete any assignment that you have a 0 for, and I will grade it as if it was completed on time.
  • Blackboard only lets me create one form of calculating total grade. Therefore, the overall grade you see on Blackboard is being calculated using the “participation counts” option, since most people chose that one. If you did NOT choose that option, your actual grade is different than what displays. Once we get more non-participation grades in, I’ll give you updates on your actual grades.

Agenda: Week 4

Monday

Texts

Writing/Activities

None!

Wednesday

Texts

None!

Writing

  • Second drafts of “This I No Longer Believe” are due. If you have chosen anonymous peer review (or if you prefer to switch to anonymous), go to Blackboard -> Peer Review -> Submit under “This I No Longer Believe Second Draft.” If you have chosen in-person peer review, upload your paper as a post here on the course site, using the category Unit 1 Work and including “second draft” in your post.
  • Complete exercises in the book for “Litotes” and “Antithesis” and post them as a comment here
  • Complete activities for “Fear Appeal” and “Humor Appeal” and post them as a comment here

Rhetorical Devices: Fear Appeal and Humor Appeal


Due Wednesday 9/21

For this assignment, I want you to look around in the world for examples of fear appeal and the humor appeal appeal. Make some up if you don’t find any.

Then, in a comment:

  1. List two examples of each that you found. (Do not Google- either observe them in the world yourself or make some up from your own head)
  2. Describe any relevant context for understanding the example. (You may not need to write anything for this if it’s obvious.)
  3. Explain why you think the speaker chose to use this strategy. What are they trying to achieve? Why do they think using it (fear appeal or humor appeal) will be effective?

Digital Lecture on Genre

You’re probably most familiar with “genre” in terms of kinds of books or movies: sci-fi, action, romance, comedy, horror, thriller, etc. When you know the genre of a book or movie, you make assumptions about what the story will be like, what kinds of things it will or will not contain, and whether or not you will like it. A lot of these assumptions will be correct! If you’ve ever thought, “Oh, I bet they’ll get together at the end” or “Oh, I bet he’s the bad guy,” you’re already doing genre analysis.

A genre is a type of writing, defined by certain rules, norms, patterns, or expectations. Genre shapes content, but it doesn’t determine content. Writers have lots of room to play around and be creative within a given genre, and tell the story they want to tell. If they break too many of the norms/patterns for their genre, their story might be called “genre-bending” or just be classified as a different genre entirely. I might say that the Mandalorian is genre-bending, because it’s technically science fiction (it takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, and there are spaceships), but it’s also a Western (Mando is basically a space cowboy who travels around to different remote settlements and helps them out with stuff). People might also say that a story “redefines the genre.” For example, most British/American fantasy is heavily influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien and Lord of the Rings. And a lot of paranormal romance is influenced by Stephenie Meyer and Twilight.

Parodies sometime use the norms/expectations of a genre to make fun of that same genre by subverting them in some way– Scream makes fun of horror movies, The Last Action Hero makes fun of action movies, Deadpool makes fun of superhero movies, etc. They belong to those genres, but they’re also commenting on them/joking about them.

Okay, now to move away from literary/fictional genres.

These same principles apply to other kinds of writing– in fact, basically EVERY other kind of writing.

Here are some genres I’ve used in communicating with you so far:

  • Syllabus
  • Calendar
  • Email
  • Survey
  • Comments-on-assignment

And here are some other genres I’ve read or written so far today:

  • News article
  • Tweet
  • Facebook post
  • Text message
  • To-do list
  • Weather alert
  • Review of a product

Your ability to interpret what I’ve communicated to you is partially dependent on your familiarity with these genres. You know how to read a calendar. Since most if not all of you are entering your second (or later) semester of college, you will have seen college-style syllabuses before. You know at least a little bit about how to navigate them and what kinds of information you can expect to find there.

The rules of genres are not always clear. If you’ve ever been anxious about sending an email because you’re not sure if it’s formal enough, or polite enough, or too friendly, or not friendly enough, that’s genre anxiety!

How do you know if something is a genre? Is “non-fiction” a genre? If “romance” is a genre, is “paranormal romance” a genre, or a subgenre? A Buzzfeed article and a New York Times article are usually very different, but they’re both news. Are they the same genre, or different genres? Can something belong to multiple genres at the same time?

There isn’t any one answer to these questions. We could probably argue about any of them for a long time! In this class, I’m not worried about technicalities of what counts as a genre. But just about anything we write, we’re not writing from scratch (even if we are starting with a blank page), because we already have other people’s genre expectations to work with.

For example, when I sat down to write our syllabus, I didn’t start with the question of “What even is a syllabus? What should I include on it?” I already knew what types of things it needed to contain. I just had to decide on the organization, the formatting, and the actual content. For example, the genre of syllabus tells me I need to have a grading policy, but I still have to decide what MY grading policy will be and how I want to communicate it to you.

The better you are at genre analysis in general, the easier it will be to write things you’ve never written before.

Here are some genres we will write in in this class:

  • Personal reflection
  • Personal narrative
  • Rhetorical analysis
  • Outline
  • Research paper
  • Discussion post

And we’ll read/watch/listen to even more genres!

Course Fixes for Next Week

Dear Writers,

I made two mistakes in preparing the materials for next week, but they have both been fixed now.

  1. You should now be able to upload your essays into Blackboard (only do this if you are choosing the “Anonymous” peer review option). Previously, you were only able to write responses to the peer review questions.
  2. I had forgotten to add something to the Week 3 Agenda that IS on the course calendar – your first batch of rhetorical devices assignments. They are there now. Sometimes, we will be doing exercises from the book, and other times, I will ask you to do another activity (analysis of examples you find in the world). These are graded on completion – if you do it, 2 points, if you halfway do it, 1 point. These are also graded for everyone regardless of what grading option you chose.

Rhetorical Devices: Namecalling and Bandwagon

Due Wednesday 9/14

For this assignment, I want you to look around in the world for examples of namecalling and the bandwagon appeal. (This is not the same as people jumping on a bandwagon– we’re specifically looking for examples of people/companies/other entities trying to persuade the audience by saying some version of “Everyone’s doing this, you should too.”)

Then, in a comment:

  1. List two examples of each that you found. (Do not Google- either observe them in the world yourself or make some up from your own head)
  2. Describe any relevant context for understanding the example. (You may not need to write anything for this if it’s obvious.)
  3. Explain why you think the speaker chose to use this strategy. What are they trying to achieve? Why do they think using it (namecalling or bandwagon appeal) will be effective?

Agenda: Week 3

Week 3: Writing Processes

For Monday:

Texts:

Writing:

  • Work on your “This I No Longer Believe” essay

For Wednesday:

Texts:

  • None!

Writing:

  • Choose your peer review option
  • “This I No Longer Believe” first drafts are due! If you chose the anonymous option, go to Blackboard and find the “Peer Review” tab, then follow the instructions. If you chose the non-anonymous option, post your draft here on the course site under the category “Unit 1 Work.” (It’s ok to post it privately if you only want to share it with your peer review group during class.)
  • Complete the Hyperbole and Understatement exercises in the book and post your answers as a comment here.
  • Complete the Namecalling and Bandwagon activity.

Agenda: Week 2

Week 2: Beginning Paper 1

For Monday:

No school Monday, it’s Labor Day!

If you are free on this day, perhaps you will want to attend the Amazon Labor Union’s Labor Day march, in support of Amazon warehouse workers and Starbucks baristas.

For Wednesday:

Texts:

Writing/Activities: