Minimum Expectations & Guidelines Your project should conform to these guideline

Minimum Expectations & Guidelines
Your project should conform to these guidelines:
• Is a minimum of 700 words
• Is written in a readable, 11–12 pt. font
• Has a title that is inviting to your readers (your classmates)
• Shares two concrete examples of everyday language use or practices
• Reflects on those two concrete examples in detail about how audience, purpose, genre, stance,
and/or medium shape your language use and choices (that is, shows analysis and does not
simply describe)
• Is effectively organized, uses clear language, and is carefully edited
• Is accompanied by an Audio Statement of Choices (video optional) that:
o Is 1:30-2:00 minutes in length
o Is accompanied by an outline of 100-150 words in length
o Provides either closed captioning or a transcriipt
o Explain how your audience affected your language choices
o Explain how your audience affected your content choices
o Explain risks you took, why you took those risks, and how your classmates responded
to those risks during the peer feedback process
o Is effectively organized, uses clear language, and is carefully edited
• Enact revision as substantive change
Project 1: Language Autoethnography
Prompt
Construct an essay that 1) identifies two concrete uses or practices of your everyday language and 2)
analyzes those uses or practices as contextualized rhetorical situations. Your audience for this project is
your fellow classmates. Your goal in this essay is to demonstrate your critical awareness of how your
language choices are rhetorical: adapted for and shaped by audience, purpose, genre, stance, and
medium.
Further Explanation
In your everyday life, you likely use rhetoric (without even thinking about it as rhetoric) to make choices
about your language practices and uses, adapting them for different audiences, purposes, genres,
stances, and media. For this essay, select two concrete examples of your everyday language usage or
practices and reflect in detail about how audience, purpose, genre, stance, and/or medium shape your
language use and choices in these concrete episodes.
This is your language story. So please feel welcome to use any elements of your language repertoire to
tell it. This means that you have every right to include languages other than English and “non-standard”
varieties of English. This assignment gives a chance to showcase your language talent and your language
expertise, even if people don’t usually consider this talent and expertise as “school” English, or even if
this talent and expertise is in languages other than English. When you include languages other than
English or a “non-standard” variety of English, you should ask yourself the following questions:
• How can I incorporate these elements into my writing so that they are rhetorically effective?
• Should I “translate,” or will context help my readers understand meanings?
• Should I italicize words from languages other than English or “non-standard” varieties of
English?
These questions are yours to answer as a writer. The decisions that you make in response to these
questions will show both your creativity and your understanding of the assignment’s particular
rhetorical situation. Ultimately, you are being asked to tell a story—your language autoethnography
should explore your personal experiences with language in a way that connects to your audience’s wider
cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings. This project will be accompanied by an Audio
Statement of Choices that explains the rhetorical choices you made for this project.
Audio Statement of Choices
Provide an audio recording (video optional) of 1:30 to 2:00 minutes in length that explains to me the
rhetorical situation of your autoethnography and your rhetorical choices. In other words, explain the
content and language choices you made while writing your autoethnography to reach an audience of
classmates. To guide your audience (and yourself) through the audio recording, include a written outline
of your main points.