Writing Self Analysis (II)

Writing Self Analysis (II)

Due on this course blog by 5:00 p.m. on F 11/20/15

 

Assignment

For your final (!) TiRP Assignment, I'd like you to reprise the genre of Self Analysis, which asks you to reflect on your writing from the perspective of a scholar of writing. It asks you to actively apply or test some of the theories we have been discussing to your own writing, based on what you understand about the relationships between reading, writing, rhetoric, literacy, teaching, citizenship, community, and identity, among other things.

What makes this Self Analysis different from the one you completed early in the term is its focus: rather than focusing on a past piece of writing you have done for a class or within an academic context, I am asking you to focus on your own positioning as a writer in (or of) the university. What are you more aware of in terms of the stakes of doing what you are doing, where you are doing it?

That's a broad question, for sure, so feel free to narrow it by drawing on the claims of Spellmeyer, Berlin, Ohmann, and/or Redd in order to conduct this analysis of your own positioning as a writer in/of the university. As before, draw on their claims, build on their discoveries, and appropriate their terms as purposefully and yet as accurately as you can to help you analyze your positioning in a way you might not have done before. If you'd like – and if you find you need to do so – feel free to draw on an additional text from our previous weeks or even one of your sources for the final critical essay. Ultimately, though, you'll need to invent the occasion for writing this self analysis. It should have purpose and exigence beyond the fact that I have merely assigned it to you.

Evaluation Criteria

Quality and Completeness – Because I'm asking you to compose in a blog space, it seems odd to suggest a page length. I need you to write enough to adequately perform an analysis of your writing by taking up some of these scholars' key questions and concepts. However, I can say that enough in this instance is typically several screens' worth. Overall, your self-analysis should be justifiable and grounded in the theories we are learning, but it should also show your comfort and competency in terms of talking about your own writing.

Content – You're writing for a fairly public audience, so your self-analysis should be interesting, though it should retain a sense of objectivity, given that you are using other writers' arguments and terms as your analytic lens. I'm also looking for you to perform your analysis by relying heavily on textual evidence, and for you to move elegantly between making claims and quoting their material. Please write with purpose and keep your readers engaged. Feel free to embed links or illustrations into your self-analysis if those would help you explain certain concepts.

Evidence and Justification – Since you are using scholarly texts to help us see your own positioning as more complex, you will likely need to provide specific examples from the scholarly texts you use. This will require you to move somewhat elegantly between various kinds of texts, and always be clear who is saying what. 

Coherence and Framing – Your self-analysis should be guided by an argument/thesis statement of your own. In fact, it should be organized in such a way that an unfamiliar reader could follow along and extract a series of points. If you're uncertain of how to arrange your ideas, you might try organizing the analysis issue by issue, or challenge by challenge, or realization by realization, or concept by concept. Be sure to give it some kind of framing statement in the beginning that helps us, as readers, understand why we are reading, and some concluding statement at the end that leaves us fulfilled while also wanting more. 

Clarity – In the blog space, your challenge is in genuinely communicating your thoughts, ideas, values, and arguments to unfamiliar readers. You are writing for a public audience and this isn't Facebook. Paragraphing, spelling, and polish all matter in this context. 

Attribution – Please be specific and accurate about names, dates, locations, authors, and titles. Since it isn't typical for bloggers to include a Works Cited list, you'll have to find other ways to include the full names of authors you discuss in your actual post, and you can even reference the titles of their essays, and when and where those essays were published (if you think those details are relevant to any point you want to make in your analysis). If you do quote from their essay, you still can include a parenthetical citation (page numbers in parentheses). If you refer to something we haven’t read, provide us with enough information that we could find it ourselves, or embed a hyperlink allowing us to access the document.

Titles – Title your posts, and feel free to make them interesting! Titles should reflect what you have thought or written or are trying to argue. They should not simply restate the name of the article or assignment.

Posting – Post directly to the blog by logging in and selecting "new post" when you are ready to do so, and remember to consult the "blogging" handout in Canvas if you have any questions about logging in, posting, publishing, or editing. Or, feel free to send any questions my way.
 
This is work, but try to have fun with it!
-Prof. G