Revised final assignment.

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ENGL 309 Final Reflection (100 points)
Educator and philosopher John Dewey argued, “We don’t learn from experience –
we learn from reflecting on our experience.” In other words, it’s only in the
concerted effort to recollect and make sense of what you’ve done that genuine
knowledge is created.
To that end, the last project we’ll be completing in English 309 this semester is a
1000(ish)-word reflective memo (described in detail below). The memo will be
a blending of definition, reflection, and a collection of evidence.
The basis for your reflection will be the course learning objectives, which are
spelled out in the syllabus:
Accordingly, your reflection will consist of five sections:
1. Describestyle as rhetorical, a productof audience, purpose,
and genre.
2. Effectively composein a wide rangeof written genres using the
style appropriateto that genre, audience, and purpose.
3. Thoroughly analyzethe stylistic devices of a given piece of
prose, and imitate those devices in your own writing.
4. Apply advanced research skills to advanceyour own writing
goals.
5. Effectively give and receive feedback about writing in small and
large-group settings.

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Section One
In section one of your memo, you’ll be working with the first course objective:
“Describe style as rhetorical, a product of audience, purpose, and genre.” You have
two goals in this section:
1. Explain and/or define style as we have talked about it this semester. I
expect you to use Performing Prose and the other sources we read in class to
support your ideas.
2. Explain how style is rhetorical, making sure to include information about
audience, purpose, and genre. Again, use concepts from Performing Prose in
your explanation.
Section Two
In this section, you’ll be working with the second course objective: “Effectively
composein a wide range of written genres using the style appropriate to that
genre, audience, and purpose.” You have three goals in this section:
1. For each of the three major assignments (the white paper, the imitative
essay, and the open letter), write a description of the piece’s genre,
purpose(s), and audience(s).
2. After you write this description, explain how each assignment required a
different style (with the goal of making sure your portfolio reader
understands how you determined which style was appropriate for the piece in
light of the piece’s genre, purpose(s), and audience(s)).
3. Make an argument for why each assignment you discuss is successful—i.e.,
how each was effectively composed. (Or, if you feel that it wasn’t entirely
successful, you can explain what you might have changed if you were to do it
again.)
Section Three
In this section, you’ll be working with the third course objective: “Thoroughly
analyze the stylistic devices of a given piece of prose, and imitate those devices in
your own writing.” You have two goals in this section:
1. Using either the genre parody assignment or the imitative essay assignment,
explain what stylistic features made the thing you imitated (or parodied)
unique.
2. Explain what you did to either parody a genre or imitate the style of a model
essay, and what you learned as a result.
Section Four
In this section, you’ll be working with the fourth course objective: “Apply advanced
research skills to advance your own writing goals.” You have three goals in this
section:
1. Explain how you approached the research you did about your topic this
semester. Consider discussing the process of choosing a topic and how
research played into that process.
2. Explain how you used research in each of the assignments you did for the
course (thinking about the differences in style requirements for each).

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3. Explain what you might have done differently in terms of researching if you’d
had more time for the assignments.
Section Five
In this section, you’ll be working with the fifth course objective: “Effectively give
and receive feedback about writing in small and large-group settings.” You have
one goal in this section:
 During this semester, you worked with a partners and groups during the
drafting and revision stages of writing (during brainstorming, and in peer
review activities, for example. Write a short reflection describing the
challenges you face in collaboration situations, and describe a couple of
strategies you might be able to employ in the future to make these
collaborations more successful.
Formatting and Organization
Your reflective memo should show evidence that you’ve learned something about
stylistic genre conventions this semester. In other words, your memo should be
properly formatted using professional writing conventions and CRAP HATS principles
– this would include things like a memo heading, block-paragraph single-spaced
formatting, and titled sections.