English 320
Spring 2002
Final Words about the Open Form Essay and the Web-publishable Essay.
Due May 2
Both the open-form and web-publishable essay assignments require you
to assess the impact of reader responses (real and projected) on the decisions
that you, the writer, make. I would like you to conceive of this part
of these assignments not only as a "she said this so I did that"
accounting, but also as an opportunity for you to engage fully with the
notion of reader expectations.
Review of your writing in context experiences in this course
The most intensive experience you have had in this class with " readership
and context" has probably been the online, interactive session that
you have written about and are currently still writing about. Most of
your open-form essays are loaded with references to an awareness of readership,
of the constraints readers impose, of the power of readers to shape what
you say; of the power of readers to tell you what is and is not acceptable
writing, even and especially when readers give you no response, or give
you aggressive or otherwise overly attentive responses, or simply go away,
thereby signaling that you are a poison to good conversation. In addition,
some of you have figured your online characters as slightly crazed by
their attempts to gain conversational power. All of this is significant.
Similarly, your recent out-loud readings of each other's works has further
reinforced your sense of how your writing sounds in the ears (and minds
and voices) of others. This experience suggests that readers not only
constrain and contain your writing, they serve as sources of inspiration.
Readers do so when they tell you what sorts of expectations they bring
to your work, and, perhaps more important, when they tell you how YOU
have raised certain expectations by what you say. Your readership for
the open-form essay is very narrow-your classmates and your instructor
and perhaps a few trusted friends or family members. Indeed our common
knowledge has led some of you to write very very successful essays for
this particular readership even as you realize that your essay may not
work as well for a broader readership who does not expect an essay about
writing on line.
Now--with the final essay, you don't have such direct access to reader
response. Instead, you must infer and forecast responses from cues taken
from your particular publication site: submission guidelines, available
categories, de facto and proposed length restrictions, ideological bent,
site "culture," and close examination of the "moves"
other writers are making to engage readers.
In short-this class has given you a lot to work with when you think about
readership and reader expectations and how to work with them. Moreover,
you have responded to writing in interactive forums and in class as a
careful and discriminating reader. So you know both sides of the coin.
Assignment Particulars-Both Essays:
Please provide an incredibly rich discussion of the way real readers (open-form
essay) and projected readers (web-published essay) affect writing decisions.
The key term here is "rich." I am looking for evidence that
you have come to terms with the complex inter-relationships among and
between writers, readers, editors and of the sorts expectations and constraints
that media and genre impose on the reading/writing transaction. You may
speak of these things as both a writer and a reader.
So far when I've asked to see how you're coming along with the readership
issues, I've received mostly "thin" writing as opposed to "rich"
writing (milk metaphor at work here-watery, skim, thin, creamy, rich,
thick). I've received sets of two-or three sentences, lists of reader
comments, copies of reader comments, and notes from peer oral conversations.
All of these serve you as evidence for writing, and that's good-I want
to see them--but they don't substitute for a rich discussion.
Some suggestions:
1. Include in your discussion some general statements of what you've learned
about the role that readers and contexts play in the life of a writer.
Back up these generalizations with evidence. Example: "Readers
are very demanding about their need for sustained metaphor in the kind
of essay I'm writing (this is a generalization). At least three people
commented on breakdown in the vocabulary associated with the metaphor
I was using (this is evidence). For example . . . . (this is illustration).
2. Make your specific to each of the two essays.
Example 1: "In the web-publishable essay, I had to rethink
radically the way I presented the hard information I had developed in
a print version of this essay that I wrote for another class. I've solved
this issue by using "you" as much as possible so that my reader
imagines himself in the middle of the information I'm presenting. Here's
an example of my strategy: "Are you an undergraduate at a major research
university? Here are some facts about the job market for you to consider
before spending another dollar on tuition."
Example 2: Hearing my open form essay read outloud told me a lot
about the importance of maintaining tension. Tension is all, I suspect.
When I saw my readers going blank during the reading of that paragraph
about the chickens, I realized I'd lost tension. Here's my revision and
here's how I think it works: . . . . ."
Example 3: When I examined the essays on the web site I'm publishing
to, I was frustrated by the apparent variety. I had trouble imagining
reader expectations from the diversity I was seeing. So I tried to figure
out what the most "readable" essays had in common. Here's what
I found out. Etc., etc. "
The point here is this: If you use the generalization/evidence/illustration
& example move (from closed form!), you don't have to account for
every little tiny change you've made in your essays. Instead, you've persuaded
me that you've learned something about attending to reader expectations
and given me sufficient number of examples to be persuasive. This method
is indeed much more persuasive than any line by line, word by word account.
Of course I will be examining the "evidence" you turn in in
the form of peer responses you've gathered.
It's fine with me if you turn in a single document about readers/writers/context/media/genre
so long as you include a healthy number of specifics about the different
strategies you and your classmates have employed for BOTH essays.
Specifics for Open-Form Essay:
1. Talk about open-form features that you've relied upon in your own writing
and in your reading of other writers' essays. Do more than mention them:
say how they've been useful.
2. If you have developed an alternative vocabulary for talking about our
class's open form essays, discuss why this vocabulary has been useful.
3. Turn in drafts alongside your final essay. Mark them so that I know
what's draft and what's final.
4. Turn in all raw evidence of peer and reader feedback.
** Extra but recommended: Turn in a digital version of the final essay.
I'll ask you for permission to pass this to Tamara for posting on her
web site. This is NOT necessary for successful completion of the assignment.
But I think it's a great idea.
Specifics for Web-publishable Essay
1. Turn in the very same digital version of the essay you submitted to
your chosen web site. If you received a response from the editors, forward
a copy to me in email.
2. Include in your reader expectations discussion a rhetorical analysis
of the website, including copies of guidelines and sample pages from other
essays. Point out the "matches" between the editors' and readers'
presumed criteria and what you write. Talk about your own reservations,
if any, about publishing to your chosen site, especially if you don't
see an exact match.
3. Make your essay grammatically flawless and stylistically sharp. It
will undergo in-class editing.
5. Account for the length of your essay.
6. Turn in all raw evidence of peer and reader feedback.
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