Sample Assignment: Individual Scalar Project
Essay #3: Identifying Problems and Posing Solutions
Writer’s Task:
Throughout the semester we have discussed the concepts of literacy and institution, largely through our own experiences with literacy and participation in discourse communities. For this final assignment, you will be asked to further consider your place and role in the larger university community by identifying a problem associated with a campus discourse community that you are a part of and posing a viable solution to this problem.
After detailing and explaining potential causes and solutions (either wholly original ones or previously executed ones), you will argue that one of these is likely the best solution. In the written sections of your digital project, you must identify that your issue is actually a problem and that your understanding of that problem is valid. In the process, you will weigh and compare the options in order to demonstrate that your most likely best solution is, indeed, the most likely or the best.
Your purpose is to have your discourse community acknowledge the importance of the problem and/or to take a specific course of action in responding to the problem, based upon your suggestions, explanations, and arguments.
In order to generate a viable argument, your analysis must make these basic moves:
- Description of the problem with explanation as to why it is a problem and why your audience should care about it
- Discussion of at least three plausible and feasible solutions to the problem with explanation of the pros and cons of each
- Argument that one solution is more effective than the other solutions you present
- Acknowledgment of and response to alternative viewpoints or counterarguments to your argument for a most likely cause or a best solution.
Importantly, when you identify and analyze your problem, consider the following:
- What is the cause of the problem—what is at the heart of the problem? That is, is theproblem an effect of growth? Does it stem from funding? Does it rooted in cultural perceptions?
- What is the history of this problem and/or community on campus?
- Who is affected by this problem besides the immediate participants?
- Is the problem one of action or perception?
- Is the problem unique to CWRU’s campus, or is it part of a larger higher education issue?
institutions?
In order to support your claim for a solution, you need to include evidence. That is, your problem is not one just because you say so. Instead, you need to show that your problem is a relevant oneby including sources. Your sources for this piece can be relevant members of the community you are writing about, relevant participants in the larger campus community, any of our class
readings, relevant and credible secondary sources (articles, websites, and so on).
As we have discussed, this is a digital, multimodal, writing project, using Scalar. The design requirements and metrics for your Scalar books are as follows:
- A splash page that includes a title and your name.
- An Introduction chapter to your topic that explains the players and lays out the problem from an institutional perspective
- Three mandatory chapters (whose pages can be pathed as you see fit): History of the Problem, Current State of the Problem, and Solutions (Past, Present, Future)
- At least 3 videos and 5 still images—all relevant to the problem and integrated and explained in the written sections of the pages
- 4 of these 8 visual images must be annotated.
- At least 5 hyperlinks included in the project
- Sources must be cited using MLA in-text citation practices
- A Works Cited page
Assignment written by Denna Iammarino
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