Unit 2: 35% (proposal: 5% / analysis: 10% / project: 20%)For this assignment, students will propose a project that will require the following steps:
There are at least three possible trajectories from here, the first being a fully developed, formal analysis:
The second trajectory is to emulate the piece of writing:
The third trajectory is to write an original piece of writing that breaks away from the published piece of writing:
It is quite possible that you may pursue all three trajectories during the process of this Unit 2 assignment. No matter the trajectory, intensive revision will be necessary for you to carry it out.
The Proposal (5%)
The first step is to write a proposal (at least 200 words), which will be worth a mere 50 points. In the proposal, you must put forward your selected piece (or excerpt of a piece) of published writing, making a case for why you are selecting it, noting some of the principle schemes and tropes at work therein, and what trajectory you project might be taken, and what you hope to accomplish in the process. That is, share what you are committed to become as a writer in the process of attempting to produce what you are aiming to produce.
The piece of writing you are selecting should be published and must have been written using schemes and tropes, ideally in great frequency and variety. The piece must be long enough to present you with sufficient material to work with and it must be short enough to allow you to complete the analysis (copying, unwriting, emulating) in a timely manner (around 20 sentences). For that reason, the piece of writing may be an excerpt of a longer work.
Be careful: while popular song lyrics may be selected, you will find that many songs will employ simple sentences, often only employing repetition figures like anaphora, epizeuxis ("oh baby, baby; oh baby baby; oh baby!"), and rhyme. This will frustrate you later because you will not have sufficient material to work with. Again, if in doubt, share the sample with me and I will help you evaluate whether it will work for this assignment.
The Analysis (10%)
For this basic analysis (preliminary to a fully developed, formal analysis, if you are selecting that route), you will break down all the sentences in the selected piece of published writing, identify the schemes and tropes operative therein, and then copy, unwrite, and emulate upwards of 20 or more sentences.
This will require you to copy and present all the sentences in sequence, much like the Unit 1 assignment. You will need to identify all the figures at work in the sentence as you unwrite it, leading to your emulation of it. As soon as you have all the sentences in a google doc, share it with me and your group (placing it in the google folder). The Project (20%)
As you work through copying, unwriting, and emulating the schemes and tropes in your selected piece of published writing, you may discover insights into the nature of rhetorical figures at work in the piece and then wish to share those discoveries (1st trajectory), or you may see a pathway to emulate the piece of writing (2nd trajectory), or you may even break out into writing in a completely different direction from the published piece of writing (3rd trajectory).
For the 2nd and 3rd trajectories, the length of the final product will likely be comparable in length to the original piece; the 1st trajectory will likely be significantly longer, as your presentation will include portions of the analyzed text plus your explorative exposition of your discoveries of the rhetorical figures that comprise the piece of published writing. Note about the third trajectory:
Attempting to draft a new piece of writing with the specific aim to implement, practice, and even master a certain set of schemes and tropes is a difficult and even treacherous endeavor. I only recommend this for the bravest of lions, since you will have to, in all likelihood, face a pack of bloodthirsty hyenas there in the elephant graveyard where many attempts to write go to die. However, if you are willing to take the risk, I will support you, and even if you fail to produce a coherent, polished piece (which is not expected), you will have grappled intensively with what it means to expand your repertoire of tropes and schemes. |