The final project gives you a larger structure (or form) for documenting and reflecting on the process of creating a text that intervenes in one of the public conversations we’ve been exploring. While the larger structure is fixed, the choice of a form (genre) for the text you create is entirely up to you. Think carefully about which genre is most appropriate to serve your purpose.
You final project should consist of three basic components:
- A Discussion section
- A section presenting the text you’ve created
- A Commentary section
The Discussion
- should contextualize the public conversation in which you wish to intervene.
- should indicate your choice of a base text (a text that addresses that public conversation in a particularly significant way) or the genre you wish to use to address that conversation.
- should explain your choice (why is it significant? What is noteworthy about its contribution to the public conversation you are intervening in?)
- may describe research you did to prepare for your re-write–texts that you read and analyzed because you wanted to imitate their generic structure/style or use/respond to their content.
Your own Textual Intervention
- presents a text you’ve created that responds to the conversation in some way (could be a re-write of the base text)
- could be in the form of any genre—this needs be carefully thought out and should be based on the purpose you seek to accomplish.
- should address a specific audience in a well-defined rhetorical situation.
The Commentary
- should critically analyze and compare “the text as you found it with the text as you re-made it” (or compared to a typical example of the genre you’re imitating)
- should reflect on the problems and possibilities you encountered in the process of creating, revising, and refining your re-write.
- comments on any insights derived from the whole process of re-writing.
