What It Is:
Length/grade weight: 1000 words, 15% of total class grade; bibliography of at least 3 sources
The report is essay focused on informing (not arguing about) readers about a particular topic in specific, detailed, and nuanced ways. Moreover, it is an essay that describes both the summary components of its subject and the context of its subject in 21st century world culture and synthesizes these parts into a central impression about the subject.
Focus:
Per the theme of our class, topics are asked to pertain to your pop, rock, and/or nerd culture interest.
Goals:
- To rehearse critical reading and research skills
- To review and practice summarizing texts and synthesizing multiple perspectives into a single page presence
- To review and rehearse quotation and MLA citation use
- To explore and review rhetorical situations and audience awareness
- To focus on writing and drafting process
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no telling where you might be swept off to”— or so one of the most famous literary lines of the 20th century reminds us, a phrase perhaps not always known for its Tolkien context, but a phrase which definitely resonates with the primary and primal movement of all journeys: the notion that in order to go anywhere, you must leave the safety of home and go out into the world. This noted, we have already taken stock of what there is to love, obsess over, fan over, and adore in the worlds that we’ve built for ourselves, but now is our time to go forward in these interests and find out more.
For this reporting assignment, you will settle on your pop/rock/nerd topic, a topic ideally pertaining to a curiosity or obsession of yours, and report on that topic at-length, in great detail, in nuanced, mindful, and imaginative ways.
The key to remember here as you pursue more information about your topic is not to immediately build an argument and fight for your perspective. There will be time ahead for standing your ground, but our goal here is simply to create a clear, objective landscape of descriptions and conversations about your topic. You will need a simple summary of your topic, a brief note of backstory about your topic, a look at where and how your topic is seen or known today, and a brief conversation about the different perspectives on your topic. This essay will later provide a foundation for your “Arguing a Position” essay, so take care to be as thorough as possible in your research.
Before all else, the goal is to keep your initial curiosity at the front of your mind and to let that inquiry guide you like the light of a lantern stretched before you in the dark. Ask questions of your topic as you report, even if they are the most obvious questions to ask; dig deep intoyour topic, until you hit what you believe to be the bottom, then keep going.
Never for a moment underestimate what you can learn about that which is familiar, and never turn your back to what you think you know.
Grading Criteria:
Reporting Essays will be evaluated on the basis of the strength of the following criteria:
- Purpose or “Leading Idea” of Topic: The report should make clear at the outset a working definition for its selected topic and provide a clear and exact description for how it means to synthesize a wide array of information into a single theme or trend.
- Structure: The reportshould organize a significant span of information about a topic in a clear, concise, and mindful way and should remain focused as it relays its experience and develops its information, never straying with extraneous information, tangents, or “fluffy” generalizations. The report is never lost or distracted in story elements that do not serve and support the larger points and purpose in the writing. The report must also take care to synthesize the components of its conversation in a thoughtful, nuanced way, so as to avoid a hyper-linear or stiff article.
- Development: The report should make clear points about its experience and develop or expand every major idea within its structure, taking care to “unpack” definitions and descriptions where needed and to take into account the familiarity of the audience, never making assumptions about the knowledge of those witnessing the conversation
- Conventions/Voice: The report remains thoughtful and personable in voice and style and remains focused on its audience and its audience’s needs and values, as well as its own purpose, never straying into language that becomes critical of or hostile towards any one party or overly generous towards another. The report’s voice must also remain professional in its conversational nature, avoiding slang, distracting quips, and text message short-hand.
- Grammar, Syntax, and Formatting: The report is completely without grammatical, spelling, and syntactical errors and is formatted correctly by MLA standards and demonstrates sincere efforts towards revision and proof-reading.
