(At least 25 double-spaced pages of writing, including weekly or low-stakes writing)

Creative Non-Fiction Essay or Literacy Narrative

• 1,500-1,800 words / ~ 5-6 double-spaced pages
• 20% of course grade
• This assignment situates students in the context of your course focus or theme and allows them to approach readings and questions you’ll pursue from their own perspective and experiences. Could include ethnographic methods such as interviews of people in their family and/or narratives of their own experiences, focused around the question of how the questions you’ll raise in your course relate to their lives. Such writing privileges students’ existing literacies and experiences while they transition into college and learn to navigate the discursive conventions of academic prose.

Rhetorical Analysis and Close Reading

• 1,800-2,100 words / ~ 6-7 double-spaced pages
• 25% of course grade
• Close reading/comparison of texts with a similar thematic focus across a variety of genres: essays, film, short fiction, poems, songs, film, cultural artifacts such as video games, television shows, music videos, using interpretive methods based on:
  • Rhetorical criticism (audience, purpose, genre, medium, delivery/circulation);
  • Literary criticism (metaphor, plot, setting, point of view, theme); and
  • Historical and cultural criticism

Research-Based Argument Essay

• 2,400 words / ~ 8 double-spaced pages
• 30% of course grade
• This assignment connects to the following course learning goals:
  • Critical thinking and reading
  • Drawing conclusions based on compelling and credible evidence
  • Developing a position (thesis) and tailoring prose to fit a particular rhetorical situation and audience (in this case an academic research paper written for an academic audience)
  • Supporting a position with compelling and credible evidence
  • Organizing writing in logical and coherent ways, and
  • Revising and editing so that ideas evolve over a period of time rather than right before the deadline.
• Reflective Annotated Bibliographies: 2-4, ~3 double-spaced pages ea., 10% of course grade
  • Scaffolding is important: Ask students to do preliminary research around questions they have about the course theme or whatever assignment prompt you’re using; ask them to draft a prospectus and project timeline; and ask them to draft an annotated bibliography and discuss source credibility.
  • I suggest a version of Prof. Mark McBeth’s (of John Jay College) Reflective Annotated Bib (RefAnnBib) assignment. See the Teaching Resources page on our program website for highlights and handouts from Mark’s Baruch workshop in Fall 2014; and I include a RefAnnBib on my course blog, available in the Teaching Resources portion of our website.

Weekly Reading/Writing

• Weekly written responses to course readings
• 15% of course grade
• Low-stakes writing done before class on Blackboard or Blogs@Baruch—or in-class—that can scaffold into students’ major assignments