Assignment 6

English 101: Introduction to College Writing – Spring 2013

Assignment 6: explaining choices as strategies (context, audience, and purpose)

1.     Reread Susan Orlean’s “Lifelike.” Make a list of your new observations about the text or how you interpret moments in the text differently after class discussion.

2.     Create a blog post and titled it Assignment 6. After rereading the text, write a longer, well-developed post that describes what you think Orlean is trying to by writing this essay, using specific moments from the text to support your thoughts:

a.     What is Orlean’s tone or voice? Where do you notice it? Is Orlean a reliable narrator? Why or why not? Where do you think she builds or loses her ethos?

b.     How does the way she sees the world she is in fit with the ways she sees/imagines her readers? What about her readers does she want to touch, reach, or effect? What thoughts or feelings might Orlean wish to produce or change in her readers?

c.     Why has Orlean written an article to accomplish these instead of a different medium? How could this genre help her achieve her purpose?

3.     Next, create another blog post and title it Assignment 6: Choices. Write several paragraphs explaining three to five of your observations as choices. That is, ask yourself, “Why might she have done that? Why would she use that word instead of another? How could this further her purpose?” Think about how these choices might affect her readers and how these choices reflect the context that she is writing in. This time, write with the goal to connect these choices to each other.

4.     Publish these posts. Bring the text and your DK Handbook to our next class.