due 9/18/14 by 3:15 p.m. (end of class time), posted to YOUR OWN blog
Your Preparation
In place of a take-home assignment, I think it makes better sense to ask you to complete this assignment as part of Thursday's discussion and workshop on "Citizen Journalism, White Papers, and Explanatory Genres." Since we will have already read and started discussing excerpts from Rettberg's Blogging and Miller/Shepherd's "Blogging as Social Action" -- and, since we will have already discussed Fahnestock's "Accommodating Science," as well as Killingsworth/Palmer's "Transformations" -- you can almost be assured that these four readings will form the crux of your analysis of white papers and explanatory genres. So, in addition to reviewing those 4 critical texts, here is how I would like you to prepare for completing this assignment:
- Revisit our shared grid and discussion notes from the Sep. 4 Lehrer Case Analysis (you can find the grid in out Bb "Handouts" folder)
- Select 2-3 different White Papers in our Bb "White Papers" folder, read them and take some investigative notes, i.e., anything to help you read not only for exigence and content, but also for organization, logic, sentence patterning, and audience construction (how you think audiences are either assumed, implied, or constructed by the white paper).
- Select one White Paper that surprises you in any way, indicate the source of your surprise, and try to determine on whose behalf -- or on behalf of what specific cause, group, or phenomenon -- it was written.
- Bring those notes with you to class. You may absolutely have them in word-processed form, so that you can easily fold them into your SA #2.
The Assignment
Discussion and Justification of the “White Paper” as a Citizen's Explanatory Genre
Compose a well-rendered post for your own blog in which you justify one of the White Papers as a citizen's explanatory genre. For your justification, feel free to draw on your preparation notes, our in-class analysis, and select concepts from any of the 4 critical texts we have been discussing: Fahnestock, Killingsworth/Palmer, Rettberg, and/or Miller/Shepherd. Be sure to unpack principal concepts from our critical texts and to provide viable examples from your White Paper, and please use in-text (parenthetical) citations where necessary.
You might find it easier to discuss how it reflects either a “citizen's” genre or how it acts “explanatory.” In other words, I invite you to make a quasi-argument in which you show me how your public genre (the White Paper) works somewhat surprisingly as mediated discourse -- or, how it complicates the notion of publicly mediated discourse. As always, please be sure that your discussion is guided by some kind of thesis statement (i.e., some statement that answers the “so what?” or “why does this matter?” or “why should I care?” questions).
Because this is a blog post, you may also feel free to make it interactive by embedding hyperlinks to other white papers, genres, or sites that you think will help to round out your reader's understanding of the white paper as either reflecting or complicating our idea of a “citizen's” genre. In other words, SA #2 allows you to be less academic and more public in how you make your argument, as a way of trying on some of the intertextual techniques you might want to use in your Sci/Tech Blog Post.
Evaluation Criteria
You may organize your analysis however you like, but please keep in mind the following criteria:
- Content/Argument – your analysis brings your public genre(s) into conversation with Fahnestock's, Killingsworth/Palmer's, Rettberg's, and/or Miller/Shepherd's texts
- Coherence – your analysis is guided by a thesis statement or a comparative statement that demonstrates the complexity of your argument and acts as a “thread” for your claims
- Depth – you write enough to demonstrate or synthesize well (1-2 screens’ worth)
- Evidence and Justification – your analysis provides specific examples from your public genres to illustrate the points you make about constituents, exigence, intertext, etc.
- Clarity – your paragraphs are well focused, your sentences grammatically sound
- Blogging Guidelines – your follow these and use them to your advantage. See especially #2, 4, 5, 6, and 8.
