Final paper

Audience, Voice, Genre, Reflection, Interpretation, Exigence, Context, Purpose, Meaning-Making, Revising, Editing

This semester, we have been reading like writers to change how we think about writing. With Unit One (Assignments 1-3), we did this through storytelling, description, observation, analysis, and commentary, and in Unit Two (Assignments 4-6), we did this through reading, interpreting, analyzing, and synthesizing course readings. Now it’s time to use the skills you have practiced this semester to help you compose your Final Paper.

As you work on your Final Paper, use your experience as storytellers and as interpreters and synthesizers of texts to help you. All semester, as you analyzed classmates’ essays, analyzed published authors’ works, you learned how to think about genre, audience, “writerly choices” and writing moves as you wrote. You developed your sense of purpose as you practiced making meaning from what you read. You have spent time reflecting on your writing process and your revision strategies to find methods that work best for reaching your goals and for closing the “gap,” as Glass says, between your intended goal and your writing outcomes. Along the way, you have been developing “new muscles” and adding new abilities to your writing and reading “skill set,” as Coates says. Now it’s time to put all of these things together to help you close the gap for your final essay.

When we worked on the 9-dot problem last class, you saw how what Adams calls “imaginary boundaries” can limit possibilities for coming up with satisfying solutions. It was only when people stopped seeing a square where no square exists or began to imagine the problem as 3-D instead of 2-D that more solutions became possible and a “difficult” problem became much easier. What this takes is looking at a problem from a new perspective. This connects to what Nancy Sommers says about revision as “re-seeing” your writing and looking at it with “new eyes.”

Exigence is the term for the cause of the rhetorical situation you are facing or what is it that you are responding to and why. We’ve talked about Context recently when referring to what readers need to know about the author’s argument in order to understand the quotations you are using. There’s another kind of context which relates to the overall project. What is the situation or context that is causing the author to write about this topic? Purpose is similar but refers more to the author’s intended goals for reaching a target audience. This connects with Lynda Barry’s questions about “Why do, what do, how do we compose” which are good things to think about as you revise your essay for the Final Paper.

Here are your options for the Final Paper. Choose one:

Revise and expand Assignment 3. This will be a reflective essay that uses Santiago and at least one other course reading to show what you learned from them that helps you tell your Unit One story.
Revise and expand Assignment 6. This will be a synthesis of Bunn plus at least one other course reading to help you reflect on how these readings have influenced your thinking about the writing process.
Revise and combine #3 and #6. This will be a synthesis of Bunn, at least one other course reading, and your own story from Assignments 1-3 to help you read your essay as a writer and to discuss how and why you made the choices you made or how you have changed your mind about some of your choices because of what you’ve read.
Final Paper Checklist: Using Your “Skill Set”

Final Paper Basic Requirements

My essay has at least 1,000 words.
I used 2 readings minimum, and use them in detail.
Final Paper Submission Requirements (Do not turn in your essay until you are following all submission guidelines):

My essay file is a Microsoft Word file.
I used 12 pt. Times New Roman font.
I Double-spaced my essay.
Used 1-inch margins all around (not 1.5-inch on the left this time).
I set page numbers using Insert/Page Numbers.
I named my Word file by typing my last name first. (I made sure to include spaces and no extra letters or words.)
I typed Final instead of a number like in earlier assignments in my file name, like this: Last First Final.
I typed my name on page one so it is the same as my file name (Last First Final) and included my section number, the due date, and word count underneath my name.
I composed a title that will get my readers’ attention and centered it on page 1.
Final Paper Writing Requirements:

I have a clear purpose or question or message in my essay, and I stated it as simply as possible early in my essay.
I have written an introduction that will make my readers curious enough to want to read more.
I provided context for all quotations and paraphrases by telling the story behind each one and by providing the key details and examples my readers will need to help them have a good understanding of those passages and of why the author is saying those things.
I provided signal phrases and page citations for all quotations and paraphrases and included either the title and the full names of the authors when quoting or paraphrasing them for the first time or the author’s full names plus their credentials (for example, researcher, educator, evolutionary biologist):
In “The Cognition of Discovery: Defining a Rhetorical Problem,” Linda Flower and John R. Hayes say, “good writers create a particularly rich network of goals for affecting their reader” (30).

or

Composition researchers Linda Flower and John R. Hayes say, “good writers create a particularly rich network of goals for affecting their reader” (30).

I used last names only when quoting or paraphrasing the same source for a second time.
Flower and Hayes say, “good writers are simply solving a different problem than poor writers” (30).

If my source was an online article that didn’t list a page number, I entered a “no page” citation at the end of the quote or paraphrase, like this: (n.p.).
Whenever I moved from one source to the next, I explained in a transition statement why I did so.
Whenever I connected a new source to the previous one, I explained the connection in detail to help my readers to see the connection the way I do.
If I included an incident from my experience, I described using sense details to help my readers to feel as if they are there, too, and I answered my readers’ who, what, when, where, why, and how questions. Also, I explained how the story relates to my sources and my message.
In my conclusion, I strengthened my message and gave readers a strong image and something to think about.
I provided a basic Works Cited that lists author (last name first), the title of the work, and the name of the publisher (Kincaid, Jamaica. “Girl.” New Yorker.)
I worked with the class tutor to go over parts of my paper that I had questions about.
Final Paper Editing Requirements:

I have read a printout of my essay out loud many times and have made changes where I see errors and rewritten some parts to make them sound better.
I have taken what I’ve learned from peer-editing and applied that knowledge to make corrections and changes to other parts of my paper.
I used the information in the Editing and Writing Style folders to help me with my editing.
I have used spell-check and grammar-check and rewritten the places that had red or blue lines.
I have spent time going over each sentence in my paper to make it simpler, more memorable, and easier to understand.