RWS 305W
Fall 2020
Writing Project #1: “New Awareness” - Argument in Narrative
Personal Narrative: a piece of writing describing an event of personal significance to the
writer
For your first formal writing project, you will write about a personal experience that resulted in a
significant awareness reflecting the importance Judith Rich assigns to “personal Sputnik moments”:
“those large or small events that jar our sense of reality, perhaps ever so slightly, or land like a major
earthquake. One thing is for sure: after you've had one, nothing is ever quite the same” (par. 4). As Rich
describes them, personal Sputnik moments also can create an awareness or awakening about ourselves
and life itself, taking us out of the drama of the story and opening our eyes to a much deeper reality.
For this assignment you are telling a story about a significant personal experience and new awareness
about yourself and life. You may (but are not required to) reference and incorporate a discussion of Rich's
definition of the term "personal Sputnik moment." Either way, your emphasis should be on telling your
story and describing the significant impact of the experience. Your argument (main claim) should allude
to a “new awareness” that you want your reader to gain from reading your essay. Your purpose should be
to get your reader to learn about or see life or your subject in a new way.
[[See the following two links for examples of personal narrative essays:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carla-seaquist/sputnik-ii-relearn-the-lo_b_805634.html
http://www.youbeauty.com/health/columns/everyday-wellness/my-journey-to-organic-foods ]]
Begin with a general commentary on the scenario with which you will develop your narrative. If you
choose to incorporate references to Rich, introduce her essay and her definition of “personal Sputnik
moment” at a coherent and relevant point. Your development strategy should combine narration and
reflection to transform your experience into a significant awareness to show your reader a new way to see
the experience. The event does not have to be “dramatic,” “traumatizing,” “unusual,” or even “exciting” to
have significance. A single moment in time when you had a realization or saw something or someone in a
new way, for example, can have extraordinary significance. To brainstorm ideas, you might reflect on your
experiences and awarenesses during the past six months of the pandemic as well as the various issues that
have arisen relating to matters of social justice and equality. However, you are welcome to draw from any
experiences and awakenings (major and minor) from any point in your life.
Your description of the event should indicate or imply what your life (or attitude/experience/etc.) was like
before the event, should detail the event specifically, and should indicate the significance of the
experience, and/or what can be learned from it. Your “new view” may be implied or stated directly (this is
a choice you will make in your writing). Include a direct discussion of underlying assumptions (either
your own or social/cultural) that this awakening or new view may challenge.
Write for an audience of your peers (SDSU juniors and seniors)
Criteria for Evaluation:
Successful papers (earning a grade of “C” or above) will accomplish the following tasks:
1. Introduce your essay with an experience that will engage your reader’s interest and that is related
to your “new awareness,” upon which you will develop your narrative.
2. End your introduction with a clear main claim (your thesis) that sets up your narrative.
Alternately, you may state your main point in your conclusion—but the intro should at least set
up an expectation that your thesis will come later.
3. Engage a reader (an SDSU student) who is not necessarily familiar with the issue or experience
you are describing.
4. Use multiple paragraphs to describe the event or situation that created or led up to your new
awareness.
5. Include a reflection on how your life (or reality) seemed to you before the “new awareness” and
how your perception/perspective changed. This can be done in chronological or reverse
chronological order. Part of this reflection should address any underlying assumptions either
your own or social/cultural) that this experience may challenge.
6. End your essay with a thoughtful conclusion or recap of the significance of your experience.
Based directly on your main point in this paper, indicate what might make your reader think
about this topic differently. What new insight would you want your reader to have after reading
your essay?
7. Use an effective structure that carefully guides the reader from one idea to the next, and
thoroughly edit your paper so that sentences and vocabulary are readable and appropriate for an
academic audience.
Guidelines:
Length: Minimum 3 pages (900 words minimum); 1800 words maximum
Format: Follow standard formatting guidelines:
One-inch margins
Double-space text, no extra line between paragraphs
Use standard 12-point font (e.g., Times, Palatino, Arial)
MLA heading information (put in this order, top left of first page, double-spaced):
Your Name
Instructor’s Name
Course/Section #
Date (spelled out)
Word Count
Title centered on first page (no bold, italics, or underline)
Paginate with your last name and page number in the header at the top right margin (e.g.,
Smith 1)
Due Dates:
Draft: Sunday, Sunday, September 13, 11:59 p.m.
Submit your file to your group discussion board in Module 1 to be reviewed by classmates.
Submission of draft by the deadline is worth 10 points. Very short or incomplete drafts will not
receive full credit.
Important: Save your file in Word format so your classmates can edit and comment on the file.
Not everybody can edit PDF files. Pages and Google Doc files will not receive credit.
Conversion instructions are posted in Course Documents.
Peer Review:
After submitting your paper to the discussion board, review a minimum of three other students’
papers following the posted Peer Review Instructions. You may review two additional papers
for extra credit.
Participation in peer review workshops is a required part of this course. Providing effective
written feedback on classmates’ papers in response to posted guidelines is worth up to 5
points per paper).
All reviews must be submitted to the discussion board before 5:00 p.m. on Thurs., September 17.
Final paper: All work must be submitted to the designated location (submission port) in Module 1 before
midnight on the following date:
Due date: Sunday, September 20 by 5:00 p.m.
No papers will be accepted after this date and time.
RWS 305W: WP1 Personal Narrative Worksheet
Use this worksheet as a guide to help you organize and focus your personal narrative.
Don't forget the sensory detail exercise on the second page!
1.
In your own words, explain what this assignment requires you to do.
2.
Briefly describe what a personal Sputnik moment is. (But be aware that you don't have to use the
term "Sputnik moment" at all in your essay! You need only incorporate the concept. If you do use
the term, you will need to cite Rich...provide a full reference to the author, title of the article, and a
brief discussion of it. Incorporating Rich is optional...but if you reference her ideas, you do need to
reference her.)
3.
What specific personal experience or event have you selected for your narrative? Briefly explain
why it qualifies as a personal Sputnik moment.
4.
What do you think would be an effective way to introduce your narrative and set up your thesis?
Identify a tentative thesis. Note: if you haven’t yet figured this out, come back to your thesis
later…This should be your overall main point about the significance of the experience you are
writing about.
5.
Organization: Do you plan to narrate your experience in chronological time sequence, reverse
chronological, flashback, flash forward, or some combination? Why do you think this approach will
work best for your narrative?
6.
Identify several key points or moments that will help you narrate your experience. Why are these
moments or events significant?
7.
What conclusions can you draw about the significance of this experience? In what ways has it
created an awakening about yourself and life and opened your eyes to a much deeper reality?
8.
Complete the personal narrative detail exercise below.
Facts
Sensory Details
Emotions
Think about the important facts in your narrative, and fill in the chart above. Try to come up with at least
ten important facts.
For each fact you list, think about related sensory details (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell), and consider
the emotions related to the facts (fear, pleasure, sadness, etc.). Add them to the appropriate column in
the chart.
For example, one fact in a narrative might be "three freshly baked loaves of bread on the kitchen table."
For sensory detail, I would write about the smell of fresh baked bread, the warmth of the kitchen from the
still hot stove, and the golden brown color of the bread. For emotions, I might write about how the loaves
of bread gave me a happy feeling as I remembered how my father always bakes bread for special
holidays and how my grandmother always baked us bread when we visited her.
Once you have finished working through the chart with the facts from your narrative, move back to your
working draft. Are the sensory details and emotions that you included in the chart communicated in your
draft? Revise to add details, taking material from this chart whenever you can.
WPA: Important Terms Defined
Pay close attention to how the writing prompt is phrased. It is very
important to focus on the exact assigned task and address all parts of the
writing prompt. If you address what you are being asked, you increase your
chances of earning a better score.
Here are some terms to look for along with brief definitions:
Summarize: Requires you to put the author's argument in your own words.
You want to keep this as brief as possible by limiting the summary to only
one paragraph.
Describe, Explain, Discuss: Moving beyond summary, these terms
require you to analyze, to go beyond what is written to how it is written.
Effective description, explanation, and discussion are objective and
impersonal, rather than subjective. Furthermore, they employ specific,
direct, concrete language.
Evaluate: More subjective than objective analysis, evaluation requires
judgment and assessment based on explicit criteria, reasoning, and
evidence. Evaluating an argument goes beyond declaring whether or not
you agree with it. You are required to assess how its strengths and
weaknesses contribute to or undermine its convincingness. Attention to the
writer's efforts to respond to potential opposition is particularly important.
Strategies: Strategies are moves or techniques that help build and support
arguments. Commonly used strategies include examples, statistical
support, appeals to the emotions of the reader (pathos), demonstrations of
authorial credibility (ethos), analogies and comparisons, irony, refutations
of opposing arguments, and quotations from experts and famous sources.
Stylistic devices such as repetition, alliteration, and metaphor can also be
characterized as strategies.
Structure: The way a piece of writing develops and unfolds over time.
Premise and Assumption: Treated as synonyms in this assignment,
premises and assumptions are the principles, propositions, beliefs, and
values upon which arguments or parts of arguments rest. Premises and
assumptions can be explicitly stated or implicit (merely implied or
suggested) in an argument. They are effective to the extent they come to
be shared by the reader and writer, thus forming "common ground."
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