MGP Invention Piece
Critical Invention Piece (10% of course grade)
Due on Thursday, February 8, by 2:00 p.m. to Canvas
Project Purpose and Goal
For the first step in your Multi-Genre Project, I will ask you to submit a brief essay in which you articulate an idea or critical question you have formed thus far, and offer some explanation and context for how you latched onto it.
Due on Thursday, February 8, by 2:00 p.m. to Canvas
Project Purpose and Goal
For the first step in your Multi-Genre Project, I will ask you to submit a brief essay in which you articulate an idea or critical question you have formed thus far, and offer some explanation and context for how you latched onto it.
Please note that this is an invention piece, not a proposal. In other words, where a proposal asks you to commit to the precise project you will be writing, an invention piece asks you to discuss a question that you have become interested in and explain why, by weaving together some of the sources and cases we have studied so far. Rather than ask a question that needs to be answered, try to identify a question that needs to be asked.
Ideally, your question will deal more with the nature of textuality or discourse, and deal less with the explicit topics or subjects we are using to explore textuality (e.g., capitalism, globalism, commerce, feminism, third-world culture, etc.). You may well use those concepts to help you articulate your question, but keep in mind how you will use them, and why. For example:
The challenge will be writing objectively and subjectively in the same piece. The objectivity occurs through your explanation of your question's genesis in our class texts and class discussions. To help you develop that explanation, I’ll ask you to synthesize ~5 sources from our required and recommended reading lists, and describe one or two cases you encountered in the course so far. This synthesis should be meaningful; you are not merely summarizing ~5 sources in a disconnected way; rather, you are using these sources to help you find a connecting logic for your idea.
Format
As always, plan ahead and start early. Send any questions my way in advance, and see me anytime if you want to start brainstorming ideas.
-Dr. Graban
Ideally, your question will deal more with the nature of textuality or discourse, and deal less with the explicit topics or subjects we are using to explore textuality (e.g., capitalism, globalism, commerce, feminism, third-world culture, etc.). You may well use those concepts to help you articulate your question, but keep in mind how you will use them, and why. For example:
- Are you interested in method, i.e., in helping to define transnational or cross-cultural ways of reading?
- Are you interested in discourse, i.e., in how discourse practices evolve? In circulation as a phenomenon?
- Are you interested in identification, i.e., in the paradoxes of identification and representation?
- Are you interested in interpretation, i.e., in a particular interpretive challenge that you think HRR creates for those of us who are new to it?
- Are you interested in self-reflexivity, i.e., in becoming more self-reflexive in your own development as a rhetor or a theorist?
- Are you interested in inequalities, i.e., in the inequalities that you think occur whenever we try to examine something cross-culturally or transnationally?
- Are you interested in something else?
The challenge will be writing objectively and subjectively in the same piece. The objectivity occurs through your explanation of your question's genesis in our class texts and class discussions. To help you develop that explanation, I’ll ask you to synthesize ~5 sources from our required and recommended reading lists, and describe one or two cases you encountered in the course so far. This synthesis should be meaningful; you are not merely summarizing ~5 sources in a disconnected way; rather, you are using these sources to help you find a connecting logic for your idea.
Format
- Word-processed or typed, double-spaced (~5-6 pages, but can go longer if needed)
- Use MLA parenthetical citations throughout the proposal, and include a "Works Cited" list at the end of the proposal with the full MLA citation for the sources you use.
- You can find the citation for our readings in the "Works Cited" list at the back of your syllabus.
As always, plan ahead and start early. Send any questions my way in advance, and see me anytime if you want to start brainstorming ideas.
-Dr. Graban