Assignment 2: The Class Bulletin Board

EngC 1011 University Writing and Critical Reading

Kevin L. Callahan

EngC 1011 Writing Instructor

call0031@tc.umn.edu

(612) 623-7685

Educational Goals:

Anthropologists know that individuals, families, and organizations all have stories that define, unite, and differentiate people from each other. People love stories. People learn from stories. One of the most powerful techniques in persuasive writing is to simply give a short narrative of a biographical, interesting, or amusing incident. This is an appeal to "anecdotal evidence" and critical thinkers are aware that anecdotes can sometimes mislead a reader if the particular example does not accurately represent the general class of incidents or a set of circumstances very well. Anecdotes are often used to persuade in politicians' speeches, letters to the editor, opinion page columns, and informational brochures. Several examples will be furnished in a class handout.

In this assignment you will be actively looking for writing that uses a personal narrative of an autobiographical nature or personal "anecdote" to persuade or to make a point. You will publish the results of your research on the class bulletin board. This method of "publication" can reach not only your classmates who are on the e-mail listserv but also anyone who can "surf the web" (e.g. friends and family). This assignment will also provide an opportunity for you to take a look at newspapers on the web and also the class website, which makes course information available 24 hours a day. The class Bulletin Board is linked to the class website with a button. When you click on the button you will go to a webpage where you can type (or cut and paste) into a form information on where others in the class can find exemplars of personal narratives used to argue or persuade. The class will thus be creating an "annotated bibliography" of 75 entries with descriptions or notations. This can be a reference for the next assignment i.e. your Autobiographical Sketch.

Instructions:

Your second written assignment is to

1) Search the web using a web "search engine" such as Google, Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista, etc. to find three exemplars (i.e. something that serves as a model or good example) of what you consider good personal narrative writing used to persuade an audience about something.

2) Record

(a) the name of the website,

(b) its web address (e.g. http:// www….) and

(c) Write three or four sentences of what the website is about and why you think it is a good exemplar or representative of personal narrative used to persuade. This should NOT be the search engine's description of the website and must be entirely in your own words.

3) Publish the information to your classmates. You should visit the EngC 1011 section 15 website at

http://www.oocities.org/kevinlcallahan/composition.html

and click on the button linked to the class Bulletin Board.

4) There you can enter:

(a) The name,

(b) Web address, and

(c) Your 3 to 4 sentence description of 3 websites that you found that are examples of particularly good writing that you would recommend that others in the class read.

(Do not be particularly concerned about putting in paragraph breaks on the Bulletin Board posting).

Assigned: The Second Class meeting

Number of course points: 10 points

DUE DATE: The second class of the second week. Thursday, 9/14/2000 at 9:30 a.m.