Assignment Prompt

Choose a topic: Option 1 or 2

1. Investigate a theme that has emerged from our introduction to language politics.

• Respond to one of the claims made in our texts or research your own question (personal connections welcome) to share a new perspective not covered in the readings.
• Consider language and literacy’s relationship with one or more of these issues: identity, culture, and background; social and linguistic hierarchies; government, educational, and (socio)economic influences; public and cultural beliefs; family, personal, and other interpersonal dynamics and conflicts; accent politics; the dominance of standardized English; language subordination; colonization; race and racism.

2. Investigate any topic of your liking. It’s important that you choose a topic that genuinely interests you or that you are motivated to learn more about.

• Whatever it is, the topic must be controversial or debatable in some way, allowing you to explore multiple perspectives and determine your own stance.

Additional Information

Requirements:

• Your paper will be 5-6 pages (12 pt font, 1 inch margins, double-spaced)
• Any images will be in addition to the minimum page requirements
• MLA citation within the body of your essay
• Works Cited page
• The final version of your essay should be preceded by a cover letter.

The “A” Option. If pursuing an “A” in the course, your essay will be 7-8 pages long and use the maximum amount of sources in what’s outlined (on the next page), and one of your academic sources must be a peer-reviewed scholarly article.

Assignment Details

Your written narrative should be 2.5-3 pages and must contain:

1. A carefully crafted and revised story of a specific moment, event, or experience.
2. Vivid details that draw your readers into the scene.
3. Three (or more) materials and media to support your narrative, such as pictures of artifacts, images, links, video clips, quotes, sound bites, etc. (As all of your major assignments will be placed on a WordPress site you develop, so creating multimodal texts is important.)
4. Your interpretations of the larger social significance of the event chosen. (After all, our individual narratives reflect larger trends in society, history, where you grew up, and identities like gender, race, culture, linguistic background, and ability. (Your interpretations may be explicitly included in your narrative or implied. But if left implied, be sure to be explicit about these connections in your Cover Letter.)

Sources

Your essay must include 4-7 sources comprised of the following:

1. 1-2 scholarly sources specific to your topic that you locate. This can take the form of a peer-reviewed academic research article, a chapter in a scholarly book, a scholarly website (.edu), or reference work (e.g., encyclopedia).
2. 2-3 non-scholarly sources. If pursuing the topic of language and literacy, you may fulfill this requirement by using 2-3 of our course texts. Otherwise, locate sources such as websites (public affairs, advocacy, government, commercial), statistics, essays, articles (newspaper, magazine, blog), press releases, documentaries, and literature.
3. 1-2 multilmedia sources: video/movie clips, photographs, images, memes, (political) cartoons, sound bites, links, lyrics, Tweets, graphs, etc.

Note: About half of the essay will be your source work (summary, paraphrase, and quotations). The other half will be your interpretations, ideas, examples, transitions, connection making, and claims about your source work.

Assessment Rubric

1. Audience Awareness
   • How effectively are ideas, arguments, and sources introduced given the specific audience, their perspectives, and expectations?
2. Source Use
   • How effectively are ideas and sources delivered and developed in the essay? How specific and appropriate are the examples and passages used? How effectively and accurately does the essay introduce and summarize the rhetorical situations and main ideas from each source used? How effectively are specific ideas/passages paraphrased and/or quoted?
3. Stance
   • How relevant, explicit, specific, qualified, and complicated are the claims throughout the essay? How effective is the relationship between stance and evidence? Are the claims made supported sufficiently by the evidence? That is, are appropriate/relevant ideas pulled out from the source use to establish the writer’s thesis/stance?
4. Signposting
   • How effectively are readers “guided” throughout the essay so that ideas, sources, and different claims are clearly attributed and distinguished from one another? Are the perspectives and relationship across texts named explicitly? That is, are ideas from across texts shown as supporting, extending, complicating, and/or challenging one another?
5. Revision, Editing, and Formatting
   • Does the essay show evidence of thoughtful revision and editing? Has the essay been effectively formatted, including the title, in-text citations, and Works Cited page?
6. General Requirements
   • Were all general requirements for length, source use, and due date met?