Humanities Homework Help

ll Think Pieces will be written in a Microsoft Word document (so that I can download and track changes if needed). Be sure to put your name on it and name the file: LastName FirstName TP1.

All Think Pieces (TP) must be at least 500 words long. If you upload a TP that is less than 500 words, I will send it back to you with a zero and you’ll have two days to revise/complete it. There is a limit to how many times I will do that; please see the syllabus.

PROMPT:

For this final, conventional Think Piece, I want you to think about your major and the writing that you will have to do for it. What are the genres that you will have to write in. Think about things like memos, lab reports, letters to clients, letters to parents or administrators, proposals, reports, promotional material, sales pitches, etc. Once you have a list of potential genres you might have to right in, pick three of them and write a rhetorical analysis of them. A rhetorical analysis should:

• First, tell us the genre or the writing that you are doing.
• Describe the audience or audiences of the writing and the things that you have to think about in regards to that audience.
• Describe the main purpose of the writing. Are you trying to persuade, offer information, empathize, give bad/good news, argue, etc.?
• And last, describe the occasion. Here you might have to fictionalize a bit. What are the circumstances of the writing: when, what, where?

Below is an example from my own work that you can use as a model…but develop more fully so you hit at least 500 words:

Proposal for a new class for writing in the English department

My audience would first be the Chair of the English department, then the Undergraduate Committee of the English department, then the Undergraduate Committee of the Faculty Senate in the College of Arts and Science, then it would go to the Educational Affairs Committee of the College of Arts and Sciences, and finally it would be voted on by the Faculty Senate. So I have a LOT of audiences to consider. [in your rhetorical analysis you would write about who each of those audiences are, what they do, the time they have, what they know about the topic, how it might affect them…think of all the ways your writing can “move” your audiences—bad and good.

The purpose would be to explain the need of the class, what majors it would affect, how it would draw more students to English, how it wouldn’t take away from other classes across campus, how it would benefit student’s knowledge [and I could go on and on and on. Think through all of it!]

The occasion is tied to the purpose, but with the added “why now?” Here I would argue the specifics of the class, how it’s needed in their professional or academic lives right now, who would teach it, when we would offer it, and I would list the learning objectives for the class arguing that they are not met in other courses.