WRITING for REAL:
Rhetorics of the Service-Learning Contact Zone

Due

Tuesday, April 15 (not graded) in class. (For students who are giving reading presentations in class on April 15, the draft will be due Wednesday, April 16, by 3 p.m. in my office.) Revision will be due Thursday. April 24, in class.

 

The General Idea and the Specific Point

For the first writing exercise you were asked to consider Mary Louise Pratt's essay "Arts of the Contact Zone" and then to narrate and describe a contact zone that you had observed or experienced. In the second writing exercise you were asked first to explain this encounter in the contact zone first in light of your own beliefs and values, then to analyze it in light of the broader social or cultural values that this incident suggested. In a full draft of your Contact Zone Essay, it is time to begin knitting together these parts into a whole that both you and your reader can understand on multiple levels &endash; personal, social, and intellectual. Your draft should not only give your reader something to think about, but also something to experience and to feel.

In the various parts of this assignment -- as you narrated this encounter in the contact zone and interpreted its personal and broader implications -- you probably unearthed a number of intriguing ideas. One of your most important jobs in the essay you are about to draft is to identify, explore, and bring into careful focus one particularly compelling idea that your experience with or in the contact zone has stimulated you to think about.

As one way of accomplishing this, consider this contact zone moment (or moments) in relation to the reading that you have been doing for this class thus far. In your draft, relate the experience of your contact zone and the ways in which you interpret it to at least two of the first four essays that you have read for class, including Mary Pratt's "Arts of the Contact Zone," June Jordan's "Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan," Gloria Anzaldua's "How to Tame a Wild Tongue," and/or Richard Rodriguez' "The Achievement of Desire."

In the revision of your leap-of-faith, plan in addition to bring into play meaningful reference to at least one of the five films featured in our class discussions during the third and fourth weeks of class, including Salt of the Earth, Mississippi Masala, Coming Home, Paris Is Burning, or Big Eden.

Think about these texts (written or filmed) not only in literal but also in implicit terms. One of these works that seems particularly interesting to you may not seem to relate explicitly to your contact zone scenario, but think about the larger implications of the piece. Think about difference and power and trying to find new ways to work within an old paradigm.

As you begin to explore a central idea in the draft of your essay, remember that you have access to lots of kinds of "evidence" to help you to explain, illustrate, and support your thoughts about your contact zone: your contact zone narrative, other experiences and examples from your past as well as other people's, your own process of thought, and especially relevant concepts, incidents, and/or quotations from the texts.

A five-paragraph essay approach is not likely to work at all well with this assignment. Instead, think about how to structure and organize your essay to maximize the impact that you would like to have on your reader, to bring your point home in the most effective way. You do not have to begin your essay with a description of the contact zone "moment," although for many of you, this will be an effective way to set up the essay. Describe the interaction to whatever extent you think necessary to establish the idea you want to discuss. Nor are you required to treat analysis of the contact zone scenario at any set length or in any particular way. The topic of this essay and your approach to the idea you want to discuss will lead you to decide where and how the moment will fit in.

In constructing your draft, it is fine to cut and paste in parts of your writing in the earlier exercises, but be aware that you will also have to edit out some early material, and you will have to generate new writing in order to connect and relate excerpts from your earlier writings.

In your essay, when you quote, quote accurately and use quotation marks correctly; clearly cite references to texts (including films) with parenthetical citations when you quote or paraphrase. Remember to include a works cited page, accounting for all texts that you cite &endash; in quotation, paraphrase, or summary -- in your essay. See Faigley's Penguin Handbook for correct MLA form.

Please bring two copies of your draft to class on Tuesday, April 15 &endash; one for me and one for your peer review partner. You will meet with me and your peer review partner on Wednesday, Thursday, or Monday, April 16, 17, or 21, for a peer review conference in order to discuss your and your partner's drafts. Written peer reviews (see the peer review form) are due at conference.

One last note: Don't forget to have fun with this! Don't lose the personal voice that you established in the earlier exercises. Integrate it! You have plenty of room to be creative and to analyze at the same time!

 

Criteria

A draft is just that: a draft -- a work in progress.

Imperfection and awkwardness never surprise me at the draft stage. Drafts are meant for revision! This draft should be a complete effort, with a beginning, middle, and end, but I do not expect a perfectly constructed or particularly polished piece of writing. In fact, you have much more important business to attend to here. In and through the process of writing this draft you should

€ figure out what your central idea is, what purpose you have in writing, and what impact you want to have on your reader, and begin to tailor your writing strategies and style to these;

€ plot out -- although you will no doubt sometimes plod through -- organizational strategy, including experiments in opening and closing your essay and linking one idea with the next as you move from paragraph to paragraph;

€ practice a variety of rhetorical strategies -- description, narration, analysis, use of outside source material to illuminate your text -- attempting to keep to one coherent and natural voice (that is, your own) as you move from one to another;

€ reach an honest and warranted conclusion (is a relatively low or relatively high level of generalization warranted?) as you begin to articulate your thesis;

€ experiment with what to include (and elaborate upon?) and what to leave out (or give passing reference to?);

€ determine which outside texts might serve you -- and where, and how, and why -- as you explore this compelling idea;

€ take risks in conceptualizing, organizing, and articulating an essay that only you could write!