This assignment asks you to write a thesis-driven and multimodal interpretation
about any story–fiction, film, television, etc.–dealing with climate change, guided by
an analysis of key genre conventions and complemented by secondary sources.
Your argument should define your assigned text as an example of a work of climate
fiction according to one or more key conventions present in this text, and analyze
how the text employs, reinterprets, or subverts those conventions in order to elicit a
certain response from a particular discourse community, or address a relevant issue
within that discourse community.
Because form and content are inextricable, your analysis should focus on the text’s
language and stylistic choices, as well as its ideas or narrative. Secondary sources
should be used to provide context and background information, and/or to engage
with other people’s arguments about the text or genre.
Requirements
Rhetorical Situation: Your audience for this essay is the academic discourse
community including your instructor and your peers, with whom you will workshop
and collaborate as you develop your ideas. Beyond demonstrating your critical
reading and academic writing skills to your instructor, your goal in writing this essay
is to contribute meaningfully to the ongoing class discussion of genre, rhetorical
situation, and your assigned texts.
Length: 1600 words, multimodal, and formatted in MLA style.
Sources: A minimum of 3 secondary sources, not including the primary text,
must be used to develop the essay. At least one of these sources should present a
complex argument that contributes significantly to the essay’s thesis. Sources may
be academic or non-academic, and a works cited page is required as part of the final
draft.
Process: Multiple drafts, peer review, and substantive revision are required
elements of this assignment. Missing or incomplete drafts and other process work
will result in a grade penalty on the final draft, up to and including failure.
Knowledge Practices & Processes
By the time you complete this assignment, you should be able to:
● Situate a text within its generic context by identifying its key genre
conventions, discourse communities, and purpose(s)
● Analyze how relationships between genre conventions and stylistic
choices in a given text achieve a specific purpose, elicit a specific
audience response, and/or address a specific context
● Develop arguable claims driven by textual analysis and substantive
engagement with secondary sources, in accordance with academic writing
conventions
● Integrate primary and secondary sources according to their relevance and
rhetorical efficacy within the essay
● Credit the original ideas of others through proper attribution and citation, in
accordance with academic writing conventions
● Give productive feedback on peers’ writing-in-progress; prioritize and
implement feedback received from instructor and peers to revise
effectively over multiple drafts
