Project #1 Breakdown:
Quick Reference Guide to a Contemporary Controversy
Research Question for Project 1:
“What kinds of public debates and arguments are taking place in my major/field/discipline?”
You will compose all drafts of this project in Google Drive.
The final version of the project will be published to your course blog, either directly or as a working link to your project, for grading and assessment, along with a reflective blog post explaining your process.
Genre Examples
Examples of Quick Reference Guides
As you prepare and plan your project, consider the following questions:
- What do the conventions of this genre - the Quick Reference Guide - seem to be?
- How are those conventions defined by the author’s formatting and design choices?
- What does the purpose of these QRGs seem to be?
- Who is the intended audience for these different QRGs? Are they all intended for similar audiences? Or different? How & why?
The rhetorical situation for this assignment is as follows:
Audience/Who are you writing for? Students and other educated individuals who are interested in your field of study and want to know more about this important debate/argument. Your audience includes students who are majoring or minoring in your field, but also students who may take a class or two that touches on your subject area and become curious about it.
Purpose/What are you trying to accomplish? You want to give these students and other readers a clear, detailed portrait of the controversy in all of its complexities. You’ll want to outline:
- the relevant background information and contextual detail needed to understand the controversy itself (Only as much detail as we need to get a clear, vivid and informed portrait of the controversy) [HINT: This should probably be presented in some kind of introduction/introductory section of the QRG].
- the major figures who are engaging in public debate/argument about the controversy (this includes individuals, organizations and/or corporations).
- where these figures are voicing their opinions - what genres of media, what publications or other means of communication they’re using.
- what these different figures are specifically saying - you’ll both summarize and directly quote from their arguments and explain key turns of phrase they’ve employed
- An explanation of the fears and anxieties being expressed by the different speakers in the debate.
- An explanation of the deeper beliefs and values represented by the different speech acts you’re presenting.
- An explanation of which public speakers in the controversy come across as the most reasonable and why.
- An explanation of which public speakers in the controversy come across as lacking credibility or trustworthiness and why.
- Some sense of where you see this controversy going - how you might see it resolving, or how you see it leading to other problems or getting worse in a specific way [HINT: This should probably be presented in some kind of conclusion/conclusory section of the QRG].
Context/What are the important circumstances surrounding the creation of this project?
Who is this project intended for? See “Audience” above.
What am I trying to accomplish in my project? See “Purpose” above.
What genre will I be working in? The Quick Reference Guide genre, following the conventions and aesthetics articulated by the 5 examples you looked at for Blog Post #12.
What materials will I use to make the project? As you can see from the examples, the QRG is not an essay. At all! It means making important decisions about color, images, white space, text, headings and subheading, font styles, margins and a host of other design elements.
Where will I be working on this project? Entirely in Google Drive. All of your drafting, revision and peer review will take place in Google Drive, though you’ll be asked to link readers to your work from your Course Blog
Assessment for the Project
Process Work on Course Blog Posts 6-12 (10
points)
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10 % of Project Grade
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Annotated Bibliography (50 points)
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30% of Project Grade
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Peer Review of Project (15 points)
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10% of Project Grade
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Published, Final Version of Project (75 points)
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50% of Project Grade
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TOTAL (150 pts)
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100% of Project Grade = 15% of Course Grade
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