Category: Writing through Parody

Purpose and Goals:

To help you practice identifying the conventions of academic prose, you will analyze Marilyn R. Farwell’s article “Virginia Woolf and Androgyny.” You will locate specific examples of the conventions of academic prose and explain their importance within the article. How does following these conventions enable Farwell to convey her argument? This is not a summary assignment; you do not have to write a synopsis of the entire article. For each example of an academic convention, provide a specific quotation along with the page number on which it is found.

Conventions of Academic Prose:

• Originality
  • Identify what is original, according to Farwell, about her argument (10 points)
• Argument-based
  • Identify Farwell’s main claim or thesis statement (10 points)
  • Identify two pieces of evidence which Farwell uses to support her thesis (10 points)
  • Identify a place where Farwell anticipates a possible counter-argument and refutes it (10 points)
• Written for a narrow audience, mainly other scholars
  • Identify a place where Farwell incorporates a quotation from another scholar to bolster her argument (10 points)
  • Identify a place where Farwell incorporates a quotation from another scholar to oppose that scholar’s argument (10 points)
  • Identify two places where Farwell uses technical, academic jargon (10 points)
• Structure
  • Identify one particularly strong topic sentence and one particularly good transition (10 points)
• Tone
  • Identify one example of authoritative tone (10 points)
  • Identify two places where Farwell uses qualified language to soften or nuance a claim (10 points)

Grading:

This assignment will comprise 5% of your total grade for the course. You will be graded on how well you

• Locate conventions of academic prose in the assigned article
• Explain the significance of those conventions

Partial credit will be given if you locate conventions of academic prose without explaining their significance.

Components: Your final portfolio will consist of three revised assignments, including your academic prose assignment. You can choose which two other pieces you want to include, but one of them must be a parody or satire. In addition to the three revised assignments, your portfolio must include a reflective argument, in which you demonstrate how you have met the course goals drawing on specific examples form your work as evidence. You may wish to include process materials, such as brainstorming/prewriting, first drafts, or comments you received during peer-reviews.

Grading:

Your portfolio will account for 40% of your final grade in the course. You will be graded in these three areas:

• Reflective letter—40%
  • Your reflective letter is an argument
  • It will be graded based on how well you use specific evidence from your portfolio to demonstrate that you have met the course goals
  • Your reflective letter should be 1,000-1,250 words long
• Final drafts—30%
  • Each of your three final drafts will receive a grade based on how well it meets the criteria from the original assignment
• Revision—30%
  • Each of your three final drafts will receive a grade based on how significantly it was revised
  • Even if your first draft received a good grade, you should put serious effort into revising it
  • Revision entails addressing higher-order concerns, like structure, not just lower-order concerns, like grammar
  • Use this as an opportunity to re-imagine the piece

You will submit your portfolio as a single PDF document with the following components:

1. Reflective argument cover letter
2. Appendix 1A—final draft of your academic prose assignment
3. Appendix 1B—process materials for your academic prose assignment
4. Appendix 2A—final draft of your second submission
5. Appendix 2B—process materials for your second submission
6. Appendix 3A—final draft of your third submission
7. Appendix 3B—process materials for your third submission

Purpose and Goals:

To practice writing academic prose, you will write a researched argument. You will need to support your argument with various kinds of evidence. You will position your claim (“I Say”) in relation to the claims of other scholars (“They Say”). The goal of this assignment is to help you practice the conventions of academic writing, which you will use in research papers throughout your time as an undergraduate. Your argument should be about 1,500 words.

Genre Conventions:

• Sources and Evidence
  • Bizup’s B.E.A.M.
    • “Background” sources provide general information or factual evidence
    • “Exhibit” sources are those which you analyze or interpret
    • “Argument” sources are those whose claims you engage
    • “Method” sources are those from which you derive a governing concept
  • Argument sources are “They Say” sources—things other people have said about your topic
  • Exhibit sources are texts or artifacts which you interpret—evidence for your “I Say”
  • You will need to briefly summarize arguments opposed to your own and refute them by showing that your argument is better
  • All sources should be properly cited using MLA format
• Structure
  • A thesis statement toward the end of your introduction should convey the crux of your argument
  • Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence which encapsulates the main point of that paragraph and reflects one element of your overall thesis
  • Each paragraph should end with a transition that connects it to the next paragraph
  • Your conclusion should state the implications of your argument, rather than repeat your thesis
  • Use meta-commentary to help the reader follow your argument
• Style
  • You can combine formal and colloquial language, but do not use informal language alone
  • Use an authoritative tone when making claims
  • Use language that is as precise as possible, including appropriate jargon
  • Use qualified language when necessary to soften or nuance your claims

Grading:

This assignment will comprise 5% of your total grade for the course. You will be graded on:

• Sources and evidence—30%
• Structure—30%
• Style—30%
• Grammar and Mechanics—10%

Purpose and Goals:

The goal of this assignment is for you to gain a deeper understanding of how the conventions of the essay can be exploited for satirical purposes. The ultimate purpose of satire is usually to improve society. Instead of stating his or her views directly, however, the satirist adopts the opposite position to the one he or she actually holds. A satirical essay that proposes that recycling be made illegal, for instance, forces readers to recognize the importance of recycling. An essay praising corporate greed could force readers to confront the downsides of capitalism.

Genre Conventions:

• Topic and Strategy
  • Your topic should reflect an idea, belief, tradition, issue, or practice about which you are passionate
  • What kind of strategy best fits the message at the heart of your satire?
    • You might invert a widely held system of values
    • You might make what appears to be a serious defense of something absurd
    • You might exaggerate a political or philosophical position to its most extreme form
    • You might propose an unnecessarily complex solution to a simple problem
    • It is possible to employ multiple strategies throughout your essay, but one should predominant
  • Structure
    • What kind of structure best enables you to execute your strategy?
      • You might structure your essay chronologically
      • You might disrupt linear chronology using flashbacks
      • You might discuss a series of anecdotes or examples of a common theme
      • You might pose a central question, then explore possible answers
    • Your structure should be clear, consistent, and appropriate to your topic
    • Each paragraph should fit into your overall structure
  • Style
    • What kind of voice is most appropriate to your topic?
      • First-person: Are you an eye-witness?
      • Second-person: Do you want to implicate the reader directly?
      • Third-person: Is your topic somewhat abstract? Or do you want to maintain distance from it?
    • What tone best fits your topic?
      • Playful, gently mocking, “Horatian”?
      • Biting, acerbic, “Juvenalian”?
      • The tone of your essay should not shift abruptly, unless it does so deliberately

Grading:

This assignment will comprise 5% of your total grade for the course. You will be graded on these four areas:

• Topic and Strategy—30%
• Structure—30%
• Style—30%
• Grammar and Mechanics—10%

Purpose and Goals:

The French word from which “essay” is derived means “to try”—not to have the last word on, but to investigate, explore, or wander. Essays are not, however, random musings, but rather follow a particular line of thought. As our class readings suggest, essays combine narrative, generalization, and intimacy. Choose an idea, belief, tradition, or practice about which you are passionate as the topic for your essay. Your essay might draw some philosophical conclusions from an anecdote. Or it might take the form of a meditation on a single idea. It might consider various angles on an important issue. Whatever form your essay takes, it should have a purposeful structure, appropriate tone, and vivid details.

Genre Conventions:

• Intimacy—essays are expressions of your personal ideas and feelings about your topic
• Narrative—essays tell a story with a purposeful structure
• Generalization—essays connect personal experiences with larger ideas and issues

Form and Content:

• Topic
  • Almost anything can serve as the subject for an essay; however, your topic should be broad enough for sustained exploration, yet narrow enough to pose specific questions and make concrete observations
• Structure
  • Your essay should have one overarching idea, which is developed through various subordinate ideas
  • What kind of structure best enables you to explore your topic?
    • You might structure your essay chronologically or use non-linear chronology (i.e. flashbacks)
    • You might discuss a series of anecdotes or examples of a common theme
    • You might pose a central question, then explore possible answers
  • Your structure should be clear, consistent, and appropriate to your topic
    • Each paragraph should fit into your overall structure
    • Clear transitions between paragraphs will help your reader follow your structure
  • Style
    • What tone best fits your topic?
      • Melancholy? Sardonic? Curious? Wistful? Impassioned? Clinical?
      • The tone of your essay should not shift abruptly, unless it does so deliberately
    • What kind of diction and syntax are appropriate to your topic?
      • Terse, staccato sentences vs. long, flowing sentences
      • Monosyllabic, “Germanic” words vs. polysyllabic, “Latinate” language
    • How can you use imagery, simile, and metaphor to develop your theme?

Grading:

This assignment will comprise 5% of your total grade for the course. You will be graded on these four areas:

• Topic—10%
• Structure—40%
• Style—40%
• Grammar and Mechanics—10%

Purpose and Goals:

After writing your own news article you will write a parody of a news article. The goal of this assignment is to subvert, exaggerate, or otherwise humorously exploit the conventions of journalistic prose. For your parody to be successful it is important to strike a balance between adhering to and defying genre conventions. In other words, your parody must be recognizable as a news article, so you should follow some of the conventions while subverting others. Most news article parodies retain the proper style and format, but for content that would not appear in most newspapers.

Strategies:

• Exaggeration—depicting a real issue in the most extreme terms
• Inversion—reversing a commonly held value system
• Trivialization—depicting a real issue, but changing the details to make it seem absurd

Audience and Conventions:

• Content
  • Topic might not be “news worthy”: your article might cover an event with little political, economic, or social significance or focus on something commonly known
  • Your article might include seemingly unimportant minutiae
• Style
  • You might write for an overly narrow audience
  • Open with a summary of the event and its significance
  • Present the most important information first
  • You might incorporate quotations from “experts” or whose expertise is lacking or irrelevant
  • Paragraphs should be relatively short
  • You might use unnecessarily elaborate language
  • You might use a “subjective” tone or emotionally-charged language
• Format
  • Provocative headline
  • Byline: your name and the date should be immediately below the headline; identify the newspaper, which can be fictitious, in which your article appears
  • Arrange text in columns
  • Text should be in 12 point font, left-justified, and single-spaced with one space between paragraphs
  • Any images should be incorporated smoothly into the text
  • 750 words
  • Prose should be free of grammatical and mechanical errors

Grading:

This assignment will comprise 5% of your total grade for the course. You will be graded on these three areas:

• Content—30%
• Style—50%
• Format—20%

To receive full credit in each of these areas you must skillfully use all of the relevant conventions. Partial credit will be awarded for using some of the conventions well and others poorly. Little or no credit will be given where few or none of the conventions are observed.

Purpose and Goals:

Now that we have read news articles from several sources in class you will write one of your own. The goal of this assignment is for you to learn the conventions of journalistic prose and apply them to a topic of your choice. To avoid the temptation to plagiarize, you will not write about a current event. Instead, you will write your news article about an historical event, such as the battle of Gettysburg, or a fictional one, such as the execution of Sydney Carton, so long as it uses voice, tone, and style appropriate to reporting the news. You may use an event from a book, film, or television show as the basis for your news article.

Audience and Conventions:

Your news article should adhere to the generic conventions we discussed in class, including

• Content
  • Topic should be “news worthy”: your article should cover an event that has some political, economic, or social significance. This will vary depending on whether you are writing for a local, regional, national, or international news outlet
  • Provide enough detail to keep the piece interesting, but avoid going into minutiae
• Style
  • Write for a broad audience
  • Open with a summary of the event and its significance
  • Present the most important information first
  • Incorporate quotations from experts and/or eyewitnesses. If your article is about a fictional event, use quotations from the text. If you write about an historical event, you can fabricate quotations from eyewitnesses, but they must be plausible.
  • Paragraphs should be relatively short and language should be concise
  • Use qualified language (i.e. “experts say” or “may be the case”)
  • Use third-person voice and neutral, “objective” tone
• Format
  • Headline should encapsulate the main point of the article
  • Byline: your name and the date should be immediately below the headline; identify the newspaper, which can be fictitious, in which your article appears
  • Text should be in 12 point font, left-justified, and single-spaced with one space between paragraphs
  • Any images should be incorporated smoothly into the text
  • 750 words
  • Prose should be free of spelling, grammatical, and mechanical errors

Grading:

This assignment will comprise 5% of your total grade for the course. You will be graded on these three areas:

• Content—30%
• Style—50%
• Format—20%

To receive full credit in each of these areas you must skillfully use all of the relevant conventions. Partial credit will be awarded for using some of the conventions well and others poorly. Little or no credit will be given where few or none of the conventions are observed.