Handling Change: Learning Narrative Literacy and Critical Reflection

Dr Cheu
WRA 101 —Autumn 2017
Paper 1 — “Learning Narrative” Literacy and Critical Reflection
2 pages; Due: September 27, 2017
Nothing Late!
Transitioning from high school to college writing often means moving from mere description and telling an audience something, to thinking about, reflecting upon, and analyzing what something means. Or, put another way, moving from simply stating what something is to why something is. This also encompasses moving from “inwards” to “outwards” — moving from thinking about self to thinking about the wider world (and your place in it). Today, we begin working on those skills of inquiry, analysis, and communication with the “Learning Narrative” project.
In the introduction to Generation Me, (a forerunner to Sasse's book about Millennials), Twenge writes, “Today's young people … face a different kind of collision: Adulthood Shock. Our childhoods of constant praise, self esteem boosting, and unrealistic expectations did not prepare us for an increasingly competitive workplace, and the economic squeeze created by skyrocketing housing prices, and rapidly accelerating housing costs” (7). Sasse might refer to this as #Adulting. This seems in some ways antithetical to learning itself, for if one experiences no disappointments or tragedies in life, how does one grow? Yet, according to many researchers, your generation has indeed been imbued with many such traits. Please think back to your childhood and a time of disappointment, when things did not go your way, or as the cliché states, a time or instant when you learned you were not “the greatest thing since sliced bread.” What did you learn about yourself, about other people, about the ways the world worked? This ought not be as simple as “I learned to be disappointed,” or “there are bad people in the world,” but go a bit deeper than that. Did you feel powerless? Did you learn that hard work does not always pay off, and that sometimes others who did not work as hard get ahead? Did you learn the difference between a winner and a loser, and, if so, what are those differences? What about teamwork or individual effort? What happened to your image of yourself, and/or your parents? What did you learn of independence or dependence. No, you don't need to answer all of these; these are simply examples of things to ask yourself about the experience to help you inquire about its meaning and discover something meaningful about the experience beyond surface-level platitudes. Essentially, reflect on how this experience shaped you, and what you learned from it. Your paper should have 2 main components in terms of content:
• a description of a moment or the event. This does not mean giving me a rundown of everything that happened; rather in the tradition of autobiography/memoir which often encompass describing incidents that changed someone, focus on key moments and their (brief) description. In other words, focus your description on the most salient parts of the event (for example, the most tension-filed dialogue in an argument, rather than every word), rather than the whole.
• a reflective portion (I imagine a paragraph or 2) on what you learned about yourself and/or the world from this incident. In other words, how this experience made you more literate, more aware of who you are in the world, and/or how the world works. (Oprah, if this helps, often calls these “a-ha moments”). The key here is to look back, reflect on how this event shaped you (see above questions). What messages or lessons did you take from it? How did it change you, or your understanding of the world? (SHOW ME this, don't just TELL me).
• Please do this at the end of the paper, rather than woven throughout. Do not tell me something as simple as “I learned there are bad people/violence/evil in the world.” That we learn from the get-go w/Mom & Dad and “don't talk to strangers.” Think more deeply. (see above).
As this is mostly a personal experience paper, you need not have a works cited; however if you do quote texts and or movies, cite them in MLA format according to the rules in your handbook!
Formatting issues:
Your paper should be double-spaced from the title onward. Don't add an extra return between paragraphs.
The First Page should have a Heading in the left-hand corner (Double-spaced)
Your Name
My Name
Course Title (Please include section # and time class meets)
Paper 1
27 September 2017
Title (centered) (Pick something interesting here; “My Life” is boring; be creative).
The First and all subsequent pages should have your last name and page #, e.g. Cheu 1, in the Upper Right Hand Corner half-an-inch from the top of the actual page, not 1 inch from the top, but half an inch. Do this by: inserting a continuous header consisting of your last name and the page number on the top right-hand side of the page, 1/2" from the top of the page and maintaining the 1" top margin. Reference your word processing software's help page to determine how.
• Long Quotations: 4 or more lines of prose, (3 or more lines of poetry) are indented in an extra ten spaces from the left margin, and double-spaced, without quotation marks. The right margin remains the same as regular text.
• Use Parenthetical Documentation not Foot or Endnotes, for in-text citations. Periods go after the citation with short quotations (McKay 52). and before the citation with long quotes.
Autobiographies are largely dependent upon pathos, and logos— in other words, be sure that your description is emotional, rather than a flat list of events, and also that the reflective portion be logical— do not tell me, for instance, that you learned to be afraid of being attacked by talking phantoms from watching Supernatural because these things do not exist in reality.
What Aristotle says about Ethos, Pathos, Logos (from shudder, Wikipedia): Following one of the other meanings of the word, Aristotle, in the Ars Rhetorica, gave logos a different technical definition as argument from reason, one of the three modes of persuasion (the other two modes are pathos (Greek: πάθος), persuasion by means of emotional appeal: "putting the hearer into a certain frame of mind",[15] and ethos (ἦθος), persuasion through convincing listeners of one's "moral character."[15] According to Aristotle, logos relates to "the speech itself, in so far as it proves or seems to prove."[15][16] In the words of Paul Rahe:
For Aristotle, logos is something more refined than the capacity to make private feelings public: it enables the human being to perform as no other animal can; it makes it possible for him to perceive and make clear to others through reasoned discourse the difference between what is advantageous and what is harmful, between what is just and what is unjust, and between what is good and what is evil.[3]
Logos, pathos, and ethos can all be appropriate at different times.[17] Arguments from reason (logical arguments) have some advantages, namely that data are (ostensibly) difficult to manipulate, so it is harder to argue against such an argument; and such arguments make the speaker look prepared and knowledgeable to the audience, enhancing ethos.[citation needed] On the other hand, trust in the speaker, built through ethos, enhances the appeal of arguments from reason.[18]
Dr. Cheu's Grammar/Style Peeves
ABSOLUTES: You cannot prove that “all people/all society” believes this or that. Or that “Everyone knows that...” You can argue that "many/some/most" might believe X.
“I BELIEVE/I THINK/IN THIS PAPER I WILL PROVE THAT” Avoid these (you may use “in this paper,” once, if at all, to introduce your thesis statement). I Know these are your opinions. Your name is on the first page.
“WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY/DICTIONARY.COM DEFINES ________ AS” Do NOT do this, particularly in the opening sentence of your essay. Come up with your definition that fits your argument. Do not rely on this as if makes you look like you don't know what you are taking about. It's your take on the conventions of gender roles and feminism that are up for analysis/argumentation in the paper, not Websters.
SOCIETY THIS/SOCIETY THAT: Be specific, who, what kind? Media, American, etc.
REAL V. REALLY Real is an adj; Really an adverb. The table is made of real antique wood. The ice cream is really good.
DUE TO is often used when students mean BECAUSE OF; see Lunsford for the proper uses of each.
COMMAS after dependent clauses. Although the teacher sucks, the book was good.
NOT ONLY/BUT ALSO; NEITHER, NOR; EITHER, OR We need the budget projections not only for the fall, but also for the spring.
TRY TO/ NOT TRY AND: Try And is grammatically incorrect and illogical. You cannot try to do something, and actually do it. Either you will do it, or you will try to do it. So, “I will try to do _____.” Or “I will do ____.” NOT “I will try and do ___.” Try And is wrong.
THAT V. WHO: Who refers to a person or people; That refers to anything else. The girl who is wearing the red hooded sweatshirt...My mother who is an accountant... Victor, the doctor who created Frankenstein, ...
PARALLELISMS and SEMI-COLONS Look them up.
THE USE OF YOU: Generally, I'd avoid using this, or use it judiciously. You, after all, don't know what it is that I imagine, or can imagine, and the risk of turning off a reader here is greater than the potential of drawing him/her in.
THIS QUOTE SHOWS US THAT/THIS QUOTE DEMONSTRATES THAT/ THIS QUOTE STATES THAT/THIS QUOTE ILLUSTRATES THAT/FROM THIS QUOTE WE CAN SEE THAT: Don't be redundant in your wording. Also, I know (as presumably do you, otherwise you wouldn't be using it in your paper) what the function of a quote is. Instead, explain the meaning of the quote w/out the excess verbiage.
POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS FOR SINGULAR SUBJECTS: The person who presents should bring their (should be his or her) materials to class.
MOREOVER, HOWEVER, FURTHERMORE: Avoid excessive use of these transitions (Three times in one paragraph is excessive)
MULTIPLE WORDS AS A SINGLE WORD ADJECTIVE ARE HYPHENATED: Sherlock Holmes is a larger-than-life character…James Weldon Johnson's protagonist is a light-skinned Black man…
DIRECTIONS V. PROPER NOUNS RE: NSEW: North, South, East, West, when referring to geography (I live in the South; the post-Civil War antebellum South) are capitalized. Directions are not (go east on I-94)