Essay I Instructions

This essay will build on a single idea that emerged in the first writing assignment.  Start by identifying the main ideas or subtopics found in your first assignment.  If, for example, you chose to write about the fifty billion dollar option, your list might look like this:

• Luxury mansion
• World travel
• Automobiles
• Friends and family
• Charity work
• Career as a saxaphonist

Once you've identified the main ideas, choose whichever one you find most interesting.  Develop this single subtopic into a well-developed essay of approximately 1000 words.

The two most important skills involved are 1) using specific examples to fully develop your ideas, and 2) presenting this information in an organized manner by using focused paragraphs.  In addition, please format your essay according to the MLA guidelines found on page 429 of the handbook.  A sample MLA essay begins on page 436.  (Note: as research is not involved in this essay, no citations or works cited page is needed.)  In addition to these guidelines, please attach your pages with a single staple in the upper left corner.

The essay is due on Monday, January 4.

Please email me if you have questions.  Good luck.

Assignment for 1/28

This is the first assignment in the process of writing your first essay.  We will take the ideas you discover here and develop and organize them.  For now, simply try to answer one of the questions below as completely as possible in approximately 500 words.

1. You inherit fifty billion dollars.  What will you do with the money?  Where will you live?  How will you spend your days?
2. Think about an aspect of your life you would like to improve.  What do you hope to change about yourself, and why?  How will you go about it?  What are your goals?  What obstacles do you anticipate?
3. Where do you see yourself in ten years?  Where do you see yourself living, and what do you hope to be doing?  Try to be as realistic as possible.

These questions are starting points and can be interpreted in a variety of ways.  Feel free to focus on any aspect of them you like.

Please bring a typed/printed (double-spaced) copy to Monday's class.  Use your imagination and have fun.

Email Assignment Instructions

In class today, we discussed rhetorical situation and the choices writers make based on audience and purpose.  In other words, what you say and how you say it changes based on who you are writing to and what you hope to accomplish.

You were assigned a letter today: A, B, or C (if you were absent, choose a letter at random).  Your assignment is to send an email to me (foxj1@ohio.edu) based on the corresponding scenario below.

The audience in all three scenarios is Robert Mervine, director of billing at Time/Warner Cable's Zanesville office (this is not a real person).

Group A: You paid your normal cable bill of 44.95 on November 3, 2012.  You are in possession of your cancelled check, cashed by Time/Warner.  Nevertheless, Time/Warner sent you a second notice on the bill.  You called customer service several times, spent hours on hold, and spoke to five different people who have promised to correct the problem.  Billing notices continue to arrive, however, and these notices include threats to discontinue your cable service.  Send an email to Robert Mervine attempting to resolve the problem.

Group B: You applied for a job as Assistant Director of Billing at Time/Warner in Zanesville.  Two days ago you visited Robert Mervine for a job interview.  Send an email to follow up on this meeting.

Group C:  All of the details of Group A's scenario apply here, but your purpose is slightly different.  Instead of contacting Robert Mervine to correct the billing mistake, you are emailing him to express your frustration at the shoddy customer service, and to cancel your account.  Feel free to be as angry as you like.

Additional guidelines:

• Use your imagination to invent any details about the situation that aren't provided here.
• Use an appropriate subject line for your email, but please precede the subject with "Group A," "Group B," or "Group C" as appropriate. 
• You will not submit a hard copy of this assignment.  The message is due in my inbox at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, January 22.
• Please post any questions about this assignment in the comments section below.  I will respond there as well, so that the entire class benefits.

Good luck.  Have fun.

Syllabus Quiz on Wednesday

As announced in class today, we will have our first quiz of the semester on Wednesday the 16th.  The subject will be the course syllabus.  The quiz consists of five multiple-choice questions, and most of these are focused on the "Policies" section.

Please email me if you have any questions.

Spring 2013 Begins Here

This is the first post for Spring semester, 2013.  Feel free to browse back through my previous sections to see what kinds of assignments I've used in the past.