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Aims of the Assignment
This assignment aims to get you to pay sustained, considered attention to how others see you and to how you position yourself as a person, a student, a speaker, a reader, a listener and, most of all, a writer. It also offers you the opportunity to write in modes and genres other than the usual school essay.
The Assignment
You can extend the project of Pratt?s ?Arts of the Contact Zone? by writing an auto-ethnography. It should not be too hard to locate a setting or context in which you are the ?other??the one who speaks from outside rather than inside a privileged discourse. Pratt says that the position of the outsider is marked not only by differences of language and ways of speaking, but also by differences in power, authority, status. In a sense, she argues, the only way those in power can understand you is in their terms. These are terms you will need to use to tell your story, but your goal is to describe your position in ways that ?engage with representations others have made of [you]? without giving in or giving up or disappearing in their already formed sense of who you are.
This is an interesting challenge. One of the things that will make the writing difficult is that the auto-ethnographic or transcultural text calls upon skills not usually valued in American classrooms: bilingualism, parody, code-shifting, denunciation, imaginary dialogue, vernacular expression, story-telling, unseemly comparisons of high and low cultural forms?these are some of the terms Pratt offers. These do not fit easily with the traditional genres of the writing class (unity, consistency, sincerity, clarity, correctness, decorum).
You ought to take this writing through several drafts. It might be best to begin as Pratt?s student, using her description as a preliminary guide. Once you get a sense of your own project, you may find that you have terms or examples to add to her list of the literate arts of the contact zone.
In investigating yourself as ?other,? you should spend some time learning more about what has been written and said about you and the people who describe you, both by people like you and by people unlike you. There should be a substantial list of works cited with this paper (ten items seems right), not all of which are purely web sources.
In the course of this auto-ethnography, you should devote some attention to what implications your self-description has for how you think about, enter into, and respond to public controversies.
How to Do the Writing
As soon as possible, you should begin doing informal writing of all kinds investigating this topic. The first writing ought to explore the identities that you claim for yourself, or that are put on you by others, and how you think about those identities. We will do some of this writing in class. You should do more at home.
As and after you select your topic, do research on the group(s) you engage in your writing.
You should organize your thoughts and produce a draft, ideally one substantially longer than your final version.
You will then revise and edit this draft, using your group?s and the instructor?s comments.
Preparing the Manuscript for the Final Draft
Please word-process your writing carefully, double-spacing and leaving a one-inch margin all around. Do not include a title page.
Be sure that your list of works cited conforms to a commonly accepted style sheet (MLA, APA, Chicago, CBE or some other).
Be sure that you put your name and the page number on every page. Proofread carefully. Paper-clip the pages together. Vary the mechanics and presentation of your writing only when the points you are making require you to do so.
Bring two copies of your writing to class. Part of the class will be devoted to reading papers.
Your writing should be at least ten typed pages (3000 words), not counting the list of works cited. Failure to conform to this guideline will affect how I evaluate your writing.
Due Dates
You will turn in a draft of this paperto meMonday April 1.You will also share drafts with other students during classafter that date.
Two copies of this writing are due in class, Thursday, May 9. We will read them in class.
Evaluation Criteria
THE PAPER
I am looking for thoughtful writing in which you examine your position with respect to U.S. society and culture(s), including the university. I expect you to produce clear, impassioned, intellectually challenging writing.
Here are the questions that I will ask myself as I evaluate your writing. The order of the questions is roughly the order of their importance:
How ambitious is the writing?
How well does this writing focus on auto-ethnographic writing?
How well does the writing convey the voice(s) available to this writer?
Based on the evidence of this writing, how engaged in the material does the writer seem to be?
Based on the evidence of this writing, how well does the writer understand the issues discussed?
Based on the evidence of the writing, how appropriately has the writer done research for this project?
How well does the writer support the claims the writing makes? For instance, does the writing use direct reference to the writer?s research as evidence?
How much library research has the writer done?
How well does this writing hang together? How easily can I follow it?
How clear are the words, sentences and paragraphs of this writing?
How well does this writing handle the mechanics of citation?
Where relevant, how well does this writing handle the mechanics of formally presented writing?spelling, grammar, punctuation and proofreading?
REVISION
How useful was the first draft for the purposes of giving feedback to its writer?
How much has the writing changed between the first and the final draft?
How well has the writer used feedback from her/his group, the writing fellows (where relevant) and the teacher to improve the paper?
This is a subjective creative paper. You can use ?first person? in text writing. Just be academic, nature and use correct and enough citation in APA style.
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