Essay 1: Toys: Are They Only Fun and Games?
Note: the above page links in the Table of Contents pull down menu are for your convenience to find specific aspects of the assignment as you work on your essay. However, I suggest you read through the entire page first, to get a good overview of what you're to do. Furthermore, I imbed mini-lectures throughout the page. I want you to learn from and reflect upon the assignment page, not just find out what you need to do.
By the way, let me remind you that the Writing Center is available as a place to work on your writing at any stage. They are located at A&S 251, phone 517-483-1907. Their hours this semester can be found by clicking on the following link: <http://www.lcc.edu/lsd/writingcenter/hours.htm>.
Also, the Writing Center is available online. See <http://www.lcc.edu/lsd/writingcenter/online2.htm>.
Those who use the Writing Center regularly throughout the semester have a near 100% passing rate during portfolio time.
Introduction
For the essays this semester, we will be reading articles on and discussing popular culture. Petracca and Sorapure in Common Culture mention several reasons to study popular culture:
- though pop culture is often qualitatively inferior to other "higher" arts, much of what is revered artistically today started in popular culture;
- we can learn much about ourselves and our American society (or other societies) by looking into the mirror of pop culture;
- we can learn how pop culture influences us individually and hence "assess--and sometimes--resist--its influences" (6).
In other words, we as educated citizens of our culture want to consider one of our responsibilities to be analyzing and evaluating the influences of popular culture so that we can engage in it with our eyes open and influence those around us, with our intelligence and our emotions.
- But one other reason that we, in this class, deal with popular culture is because it is a general topic that we have readily available and that we all have some level of experience with.
- Hence we can practice academic writing and reading with something that we can relate to and discuss with our audience.
The Goal of the Essay
The editors of Common Culture mention one other reason to write about popular culture: "it is an important step toward living an examined life" (2), one of the purposes and values of education. Therefore, with your first essay, I'd like you to examine an aspect of pop culture that you encountered from the days of your earliest memories: toys. In other words, I would like you to explore the importance of toys, based on your own experience and observation with the purpose of giving us insight into the value of toys.However, you are limited to focusing on only one toy to illustrate the position you assert: plan on telling a narrative or two that illustrate why you see the toy as you do, and explain what insight this brings to us about what it means or signifies.
- Now note the word narrative. If you aren't sure what that means, look it up in Ideas and Details.
Below under prewriting you will find questions to help you think about your experience with and observation of toys. However, don't think that you need to answer all or even most of these questions in your essay. Instead, you will want to focus on one toy, and likely one aspect of the toy's influence or meaning.
- In other words, don't attempt to give us a full toy autobiography from preschool to last week.
- Instead, focus upon a thesis statement that expresses something significant, interesting or curious about toys and gives us insight into what it means.
- And do not forget to be generous with examples and observations that are full of details to back up your general statements.
Remember your audience
We, the members of this class, are your audience. As a group of educated adults, you will need to tell us something worth our time, and show us evidence for the validity of your insight. Now for this essay, you need not do any research--your own experience and observations will usually suffice. But in order to do so, you will need to be generous with sense details and narration to back up your insight.
- However, if you want to do some research on the toy you choose to discuss, feel free to do so.
- And should you use sources other than your own experiences and observations, make sure to cite such. See our Little Penguin Handbook (LPH) 67+.
Just keep in mind the acronym from the virtual lecture on academic essays--SWWC--so what, who cares? In other words, ask yourself why your position on the toy matters, and why we should be interested in it. What insight might you bring us about toys based on your experience and observation?
Requirements
This paper is to be
- 800-1000 words in length,
- obviously word processed,
- formatted with MLA style guidelines (LPH 94 and sample in Pages & Workspaces>Course Files>Samples from Dan) and
- in RTF format.
And remember: strive to accomplish the maximum number of words allowed on papers--shorter papers typically are not developed effectively with sufficient detail or with sufficient complexity of thought for a college level audience.
And make sure to keep everything you do in working this paper, including hard copies of the drafts you produce, because I will need to see all of it if you choose the essay for the portfolio.
There are four steps that need to be completed as described below to receive full credit for this essay.
Due dates:
- Step 1--prewriting: 9/15/07, Saturday midnight
- Step 2--draft: 9/15/07, Saturday midnight
- Step 3--audience response: 9/20/07 Thursday midnight
- Step 4--final draft: 9/22/07, Saturday midnight
Note about time.
Step 1: Prewriting
(Note: please send through the Prewriting Drop Box at
Pages & Workspaces>Week 3 and do not send through the letter drop box.)By Saturday midnight 9/15/07 send me, as an RTF file, some prewriting--note there are two things to submit--responses to questions and a working thesis:
- Responses to questions: Answer as fully as
possible the questions I supply below. And although
these are due on Saturday, I suggest you get started on them right away.
Brief, cryptic answers rarely benefit you. Plan on spending at least an
hour or two responding.
- Copy and paste the questions into your word processor, and then answer underneath each. That way, you'll be sure to answer more fully.
These questions are based on what are often called "Reporter's Questions," or the 6Ws--who, what, where, why, when, and how). This technique is an excellent way to look at a topic from multiple angles.
- How many toys do you remember playing with as a child? Make a list of as many toys as you can remember.
- What is the first toy you remember? Where was it? Who gave it to you?
- What types of toys did you most enjoy as a child? What was one of your favorite toys? Why so?
- What types of toys did you avoid? Were there any toys you were not allowed to play with? What about toys that your parents or other relatives tried to get you to play with, but you refused or avoided playing with them? Why so?
- How did you play with toys? Did you always use toys as they were designed, or did you play with them in unusual or curious ways?
- Where did you play with toys? Try to think of all of the different places you played with toys--how did where you were influence or shape your play or your approach to the toy?
- What part did toys play in your parents' lives? Of course they likely gave you toys, but were there (or are there) any toys they played with, collected or talked about? Which toys did they play with you? Which ones did they seem to dislike, if any? How did their attitudes affect yours as a child? How do their attitudes affect your current attitudes toward toys or play?
- Who do you remember playing with as a child? Which toys were favorites of your friends, siblings, cousins and such? Which toys did you especially enjoy playing with others?
- What other adults interacted or interfered with your toys? Did teachers encourage play with toys, or discourage? Were there any toys you played with in school that were particularly memorable?
- How are toys today different than those from your childhood? Do kids today play with toys like you did or is there a significant difference? Do you see the difference as a positive change or a negative change? Why so?
Now note, these are questions to help you discover what you find most fruitful for a paper. Do not think that you should cover all of these questions in your essay. Trying to do so in an 1000-word essay would make for very general and dull reading.
- Instead pay attention to yourself as you answer the questions.
- Where do you find yourself becoming interested, intrigued, puzzled, or curious? Where do you come upon something you hadn't thought of before?
- When are you able to come up with a lot of detail, a number of interesting examples and stories?
- These are the aspects of the topic you will want to focus on as you develop your essay.
- Working Thesis :
Also, include a working thesis for the essay, in one sentence, the main
point of the essay.
- If you're not sure what I mean by a working thesis, see the virtual lecture on academic essays, Part 2, especially the section on working thesis statements .
Now note: Prewriting is not a draft of your essay.
It's the initial thinking out loud on paper, a list of details, answering initial
questions, mapping, outlining.
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Step 2: Draft
Also by Saturday midnight 9/15/07, you need to post a draft of your essay to the Writer's Workshop forum.
- You can attach as an RTF file.
- Or you can copy and paste into the message box.
- And this draft should be as complete as possible--with a beginning, middle, end--though it doesn't need to be pretty or perfect. Just posting a paragraph or two will give your partners little to work with and will elicit much weaker feedback than with a fully formed draft.
Note: it is very important to keep this deadline. Otherwise other class members will have a difficult time doing the next step. And you stand the chance of not getting sufficient feedback.
Step 3: Audience Response
By Thursday midnight 9/20/07, read
class members' papers and write responses to the
writers in the
- When you submit your revised draft (step 4 below), you will need to
have responded to a minimum of three drafts
from class members in the
Step 4: Revised draft with reflection
Finally, by
Saturday midnight 9/22/07, send me a revised draft of Essay 1 in RTF through the essay drop box.Do keep in mind that you have a 24-hour grace period so revised drafts can be completed and sent by Sunday midnight with no penalty.