Appendix 2: Assignments 9, 10, and 9 3/4
Assignments 1-8 in this course all lead up to the final three assignments:
The final and most important will be Assignment 10, a 5-6 page discussion of a topic relevant to a university audience; we will use Assignment 8 to lay out possible topics; you will post the topics to a Discussion forum and I and your classmates will comment upon them. Once I approve a topic/course of study for you, you can embark on the research for the paper that will form the basis for both Assignments 9 and 10.
Assignment 9 is a 4-5 page historical overview of scholarship on your topic; you will use it to practice basic writing skills and the communication of complex ideas. The feedback I give you on this paper will be applicable for your work on Assignment 10.
The idea behind both assignments is that you will write with substance if you are given the opportunity to think substantively about a topic and learn about it from multiple perspectives and at length.
In order to give you additional opportunities to practice writing a substantive academic discussion, you will also work on Assignment 9 3/4, in which you will fulfill most of the requirements for Assignment 10 by writing a collaborative essay on one of two topics, the phenomenon of "adjunctification" or the use of student data in the university setting. Through the process of writing this paper, you'll learn the skills and methods appropriate to college-level writing.