ENGL 121 D – Spring 2007

Assignment: Sequence Two: Theorizing Experience (S2)

Due: First Draft: Thursday, May 24(Due in class)

Due: Second Draft: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 (by 5PM)

Mechanics: minimum 6 pages, double-spaced, 12 point, 1” margins, MLA format and Works Cited.

There are two different genre options for this paper that require two different kinds of writing, evidence, style, etc. For each option, you need to add two outside sources to your paper other than our class readings. We are purposefully not reading a lot this sequence so that you have time to read on your own (and few did outside research on the last paper).

As the prompt for S2 already requires a more complex claim and paper, most should use your S2 paper in your portfolio.

Option One: Racial Formation in Space

For this option, expand your Intertextual Reading (IR) paper (in which you use the ways of thinking in Omi and Winant’s “Racial Formation” to analyze a cultural text) by adding some discussion of urban space to your analysis. We’ve talked about how social relations produce and are produced by urban space and we’ve talk about Omi and Winant’s ideas about racial formation, now discuss in this paper how racial formation can be used to think about social relations in urban space. You’ll need to focus on one text and make one claim through your analysis of that text (in other words, in your IR, it was OK to apply Omi and Winant to a reading of a text; in S2, you need to make a claim using that reading.) The basic critical questions for this option include: what does your reading of your text reveal about our current spatial racial formation? And what does your reading of your text using racial formation and ideas about urban space reveal about larger social structures?

To do this option, you might:

  • Expand your racial formation reading/analysis of Hughes or other literary/TV/film/music text texts to think about how space is engaged or represented in the text
  • Expand your racial formation analysis of your SLO to include discussion about how your SLO produces or is produced by urban space (use your blog for ideas)
  • Expand your analysis of a historical event or social issue to include some discussion about how that event was shaped by the space in which it took place

To successfully accomplish this option, you’ll need to:

  • focus on one text and
  • focus on one idea that you want to argue through your analysis of that text
  • then discuss Omi and Winant (perhaps already done sufficiently in your IR)
  • then discuss one of the readings on space in relation to Omi and Winant’s ways of thinking
  • then discuss how your object of analysis can be understood through your new ideas about racial formation in urban space
  • finally, come to some conclusion about the idea you want to argue – the basic question will be: what does your reading of your text

Outside sources might include:

  • Journal articles discussing “Racial Formation” or urban space
  • Information about your text (like author information, history, other readings of the text, information about your SLO)
  • Other information about your claim (others arguing similar claims in different ways)

Option Two

For this option, write an analysis of your service learning organization’s goals and your experience there(use your blog entries to do this), then isolatesomething you think would help this organization achieve those goals. Provide an analysis of your suggestions by discussing why it should be done and howit can be done.Yourclaim for this paper will be something like “my SLO does this” and “I think doing this might help it achieve its goal.” The first “this” is the work it does and how, the second “this” can be something as varied as writing a text that makes its goals more visible, changing the space somehow at your site to help your SLO accomplish something, or helping to fund something you think your SLO needs.Yourevidence is going to be your reading of your SLO’s goals and what you think could be addressed to help accomplish these goals. Other evidence might include something about how other community gardens or urban parks accomplish their goals that might aid your SLO. Or your evidence might be theoretical – if you think your SLO needs to think about urban space/discipline/racial formation differently than it does, use any of our readings to offer theoretical suggestions about how thinking about their space differently might help them achieve their goals.

To make your paper more useful (to raise the stakes), you can talk to your SLO to see if they know of something the SLO needs that you might analyze in this paper. Do not write this paper and take it to your SLO as a critique of their ways of doing things because, most likely, they already know what they need. This paper is an exercise in a genre of writing in which you isolate something that may be needed; analyze why you think your SLO needs this and then makes suggestion(s) about how it might be obtained. (Option 2.2: If you find a grant or a writing project that your SLO would like done, you can write a short analysis paper and then write the grant, pamphlet, article, or website for this paper.)

To do this option, you might:

  • Isolate something that your SLO needs money to do and find a grant that would help do this
  • Isolate ways your SLO might make its work more visible to the community, then analyze why visibility is important and how it might be accomplished (such as a new pamphlet, news article about its current work, or a new website)
  • Isolate a focus/way of doing/thinkingabout your SLO’s project they might not be engaging (or doesn’t have time to) and suggest why this might be important for their goals and how to accomplish it
  • Isolate a concrete example of some way your SLO might

To successfully accomplish this option, you’ll need to:

  • First discuss your service learning organization’s role/goals/ways of doing things
  • Discuss your experience at your service learning organization including:
  • The role of service learning in general
  • The role of service learning volunteers at your SLO specifically
  • Your personal experience at this SLO (use your blogs)
  • Isolate something you think the SLO needs or needs to do
  • Suggest ways that your SLO might get what it needs (fund raising ideas, grants, etc.)
  • Suggest ways that your SLO might do something differently

Outside sources might include:

  • Information about your SLO (how it represents itself and how it is seen in the media)
  • Information about grants and funding-raising activities done by other community gardens or parks
  • Information about how other community gardens or urban parks have done things

Writing Note

You are now responsible for using the writing handouts for this paper – these are the things I will be looking for in the portfolio.

  • write an introduction (clearly stating your claim) and a conclusion (leave readers thinking)
  • make sure your paper’s organization flows well and logically unfolds your argument
  • make sure every paragraph is supporting your main claim in some way
  • use transitions between paragraphs to make connections between the ideas
  • use the quote sandwich to introduce and explain the quotes you use
  • introduce and summarize the main arguments of all your sources (use the S1AB format)
  • do a close reading of the specific ideas you use from your critical lens
  • make sure all MLA formatting is in order
  • add a Works Cited page