ENGL 655 Rhetoric's Avant-garde
ENGL 655 Rhetoric's Avant-garde

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Assignments

Assignment Values

Assignment Due Date Value
Paper Proposal 2016-11-18 20%
Final Paper 2016-12-10 60%
Response Papers Continuous 20%

Assignment Descriptions

Paper Proposal

For this assignment, you will need to write a short (500 word) abstract for your proposed final paper. This abstract should state (briefly and clearly) what you are proposing to argue, how it contributes to the intellectual conversation surrounding your topic, and what previous scholarship it either refutes or extends.

In addition to the abstract, you will provide MLA citations for five (5) articles or books you propose using in your final paper. Along with each citation, provide a short (one to two sentence) description of the piece’s argument and its use to your proposed paper.

Final Paper

The final paper for this class may proceed along a number of paths. You may choose to write the standard seminar paper (20 to 30 pages) on a topic of your choosing that responds to or extends some element of class discussion or reading. Such a paper should advance a thesis and support it via argumentation and citation. You should further conform to MLA standards throughout the paper.

Additionally, you may choose to produce a piece of avant-garde writing using one of the forms we have explored in class (experimental poetry, écriture féminine, film, webtext, any of Ulmer’s electrolate forms, etc) accompanied by a (5-15 page) creator’s statement that explains the work. This statement needs to be both technical (“how I made this”) and critical (“how my work contributes to our understanding of my topic”). You should expect to cite at least five (5) sources in this statement. This statement should also contain some reflection on the process of your object’s creation: was it successful? if you were to do it again, would you do things differently? how do you see this project continuing in the future?

Response Papers

In addition to showing up for each seminar meeting, you are required to produce ~1 page of single-spaced writing in response to the week’s readings. These will be due an hour before our seminar starts to the week’s dropbox on eCampus.

We will begin seminar by going around the room, summarizing each person’s responses. These will form the backbone of our weekly discussion. As such, you will need to bring a version of your response with you to seminar (can be on a laptop or cellphone; do not feel required to bring a hard copy).