Discussion a interview yourself—or, better yet, have someone inte

1. DISCUSSION A: Interview yourself—or, better yet, have
someone interview you—using the same or similar questions
Professor Rawlins used to interview his student on pp. 69-72 of
The Writer’s Way. Write a 75 to 150-word process describing
the interview. Identify at least three ideas for essays which
came from your interview. What surprised you about this
process?
THE WRITERS WAY PAGE 69-72: Letter writing. Most of us
write well when we text, email, and write let-terms, because
we’re writing as ourselves to a real audience we feel we can
talk to. Write about the events of the day if that’s all you feel
up to; if you want to ask more of yourself, write, “I’ve been
mulling over this thing for this essay I’m writing for a class.
It’s about...,”and block out the essay for your reader. Discovery
drafts. A discovery draft is a first draft that’s purely
exploratory; you just keep saying things and see where they
lead you. You ask nothing, but you hope that by the time you’re
done, you will have discovered in your writing a sense of what
you’re going to do. It’s sort of like a football team doing
calisthenics before a game—just loosening up. No one really
cares to watch. It’s not for the benefit of the audience/crowd
anyway; it’s for the benefit of the players, who wouldn’t be
ready to play without warming up first. Writers often call this
kind of loosening up “free writing. ”In its most extreme form,
you write for a predetermined period of time and keep writing
sentences no matter what happens. If you have nothing to say,
write,“ I have nothing to say “over and over until you find
something else to say. Write song lyrics, gibberish, “The quick
brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, “or whatever, but keep
writing.10.Abstracts.Abstracts can be intimidating, but they can
also be liberating if you have been mulling the essay over, your
head is full of what you want to say, and you just try to dash the
abstract off, like a cartoon before the detailed drawing. In

2. Chapter 7 I’ll talk more about how to write abstracts.11.Don’t
outline, or if you do, do so freely and without regard to formal
structure. Outlining isn’t an un-essay because it’s an organizing
discipline, not a prewriting tool. It’s rigid, mechanical, and
structured—the opposite of everything we want at this stage. It
closes you down instead of opening you up. Map or write an
abstract instead. WRITER’S workshop Finding Essays in Your
Life Professor Rawlins once asked his class for a volunteer who
“had nothing to say, “someone whose life had been “nothing
special. “He and the vol-under (Sally) talked for twenty minutes
and then looked back over their conversation for possible essay
topics. Here’s their conversation, with the ideas for essays in
parentheses’: Tell me about yourself. What do you do? S: I’m
a student. I work in a restaurant, and I enjoy sports’: What kind
of sports do you: I used to compete in track, but now it’s for
my own enjoyment.(Compare being athletic in formal
competition with being athletic just for fun, arguing that
athletics outside of organized competition is healthier, more
fun, less stressful.) I run, play basketball, do cross-country
skiing, downhill. I play a little bit of volleyball, swim, play
softball. I’ve only just started cross-country skiing. I really like
it because of the solitude; there’s more physical exercise.
Downhill I like because of the speed and getting accuracy
down.(Write to downhillers, arguing that cross-country skiing is
less crowded, cheaper, better for your body, and better for your
spirit.) JR: What did you do in tracks: Shot put and half mile. I
had a lot of strength from weight lifting JR: Did you ever take
any flak for doing something that was as “unfeminine” as
putting the shot? S: Sure. We were considered jocks. There was
a lot of stereotyping....(Write to large, strong girls, sharing your
experience pursuing a “manly “sport and encouraging them not
to be intimidated; or defend the thesis: Even after the women’s
movement, female athletes still face prejudice.) I was used as a
guinea pig for a program. Since I was a good athlete, they
wanted to see how strong they could really make me. But I
ended up getting injured. They didn’t provide the equipment

3. needed—belts and stuff like that. I strained my back. From
trying to squat too much. (Write to beginning women weight
trainers, offering training tips and cautioning them about the
dangers.) JR: Tell me about your past. What was your childhood
like? S:We grew up fairly poor. My mom divorced when I was
seven, so it was just the girls in the house: my two sisters,
Mom, and me. JR: What was it like when your parents
divorced? S: I was happy about it. I was scared to death of my
father. He hit us a lot. The way I look on it now, that was the
only way he had to communicate. That’s the way he was raised.
I was scared to death of him and anyone who was ever going to
raise a hand to me. It caused many problems with our
relationship. To the point where I didn’t know him—though he
doesn’t live very far from my hometown. (Write to children of
divorce, sharing your feelings and the insights you’ve gained
from the experience; or write to children physically abused by
their parents, sharing your experiences and your feelings; or
defend the thesis: Sometimes divorce is good for the children of
the marriage.) JR: How did your father’s treatment of you
affect yours: It made it hard to be affectionate with people—
I’m beginning to out-grow that. Also I felt like I was a bad
person, but that’s also because he would tell me bad things
about myself. I wanted to be a lawyer all my life, but he always
told manrope, you’ll never be good at that, you’ll never be good
at that. “And he told me that so many times, I tell myself that.
He wanted a boy. (Write about what it’s like growing up with
parents who tell you you’re bound to fail; or write about what
it’s like being a girl in a family where a parent wanted a boy.)
JR: Did you always live in the same place when you were
growing up? S: No, in high school we moved and I had to
change schools. My mom thought I was a little too radical and
the neighborhood was a bad influence on me. JR: Do you agree?
S: No. There was definitely a better grade of education in the
new place, but the new high school was in a richer
neighborhood and was really into cocaine. The girls were all
daddy’s little girls, they got everything they wanted, they didn’t

4. have to work for anything; the guys all thought they were
cowboys, which I thought was funny, since they probably never
had been near a horse. (Write as satire laughing at the
foolishness of parents who move to upper-middle-class
neighborhoods in the mistaken belief that they’re escaping the
problems of poverty or the city; or defend the thesis: “Better
neighborhoods “aren’t always better.) JR: Were you doing
drugs? S: I drank a lot, but never when I was playing any sport,
because it would screw me up. (Defend the thesis: We should
fight drug abuse by helping kids find something they love so
much they won’t risk losing it.) JR: How did you ever survive
long enough to make it to college? S: I had the influence of my
mother, which was very positive, very striving. She works in a
field where very few women do, general contracting,
multimillion-dollar buildings. She doesn’t have a college
degree, so she doesn’t have a title, but she travels all over the
country, part engineer work, part administration; she heads a
marketing team....She’s a super-intelligent lady, and the kind of
person who, when something isn’t supposed to be possible, can
get it done. (Write about your mother and your relationship with
her, showing the ways she helped you survive your youth.)JR:
It sounds like your mom was a very good influence. S: Almost
too much so. I’m in awe. And I have a stepfather who’s a doctor
and very successful, who’s also very intelligent. (Write about
the pluses and minuses of having a stepparent; or write about
the pluses and minuses of having parents who are superheroes.)
JR: What are your plans? S: I intend to go overseas and teach.
That’s what I’d like. Teach English for a while. (Write to
English majors, defending the thesis: You should consider
teaching English overseas for a year or two.) That’s seventeen
essays in twenty minutes from what Sally was convinced was a
“nothing” life. Of course, Sally’s life turned out to be anything
but ordinary, but the funny thing is that the same thing happens
with every life, including yours, when you start looking at it
this way. Now It’s Your Turn. With a classmate, do Sally-type
interviews of each other. Have her interview you for fifteen

5. minutes; then you interview her. Together, find as many essay
seeds in each interview as you can. Try to find personal essays,
informative essays, and arguments. Make sure that none of the
seeds is a topic (a noun or a noun phrase). EXERCISES1. For
two days, record (in a notebook or journal) all the striking
prompts you encounter: fragments of conversation overheard in
the grocery store, startling ads on TV, unusual moments in
class. Take two and recast themes ideas for essays, a sentence to
a short paragraph each.2. Make a list of things that have made
you mad recently. Take one and explore its possibilities as an
essay, not only as a personal essay but as other forms with other
purposes. What kind of inquiry does it lead to for research?
What’s a possible thesis for an argument paper?3. On pp. 46–47
is a list of five ways to find essay ideas. Find an essay in your
life by way of each item in the list. For example, for the first
item, pick some place you’ve been and describe it to someone in
a couple ofsentences.4. Find an essay, in The Writer’s Way or
elsewhere, that sparks a thoughtful response in you. Turn that
response into an essay.5. Find an essay, in The Writer’s Way or
elsewhere, that has a technical feature (lots of dialogue, a
flashback, use of second person, etc.) that you like but have
never tried. Using the essay as a model, write a short essay
mimicking that feature. At the bottom of the page, identify the
feature you’re mimicking: for example, “I’m mimicking the use
of dialogue. “My stun-dents love to mimic Megan Sprawl’s
essay “The Dos and Don’ts....”on p. 342 in “A Collection of
Good Writing.”6. Identify an idea for an essay. Then do the
following things with it: a. Make a map from it. b. Brainstorm
it with a classmate for ten minutes. c. Write a real letter to a
real friend of yours in which you say some-thing like, “I’ve
been thinking about this essay I’m writing for my comp class.
It’s about....”Then tell your reader the essay, keeping him
interested.
End of the Writers WAY
MUST BE 100 Words. On Discussion A as well as 100 words on
Discussion B.

6. DISCUSSION B:
· Think of a new product you recently purchased or used, or an
ad for a new product.
· Share with the class this new product idea; in addition to
describing this new item indicate whether this new product is
either additions to existing product lines or improvements or
revisions of existing products.
· Do you believe your new product will be among the few new
product ideas that are truly successful?
· Why or why not?
MUST BE 100 WORDS
Policy Writing and Analysis
Write a 3–5 page policy brief:
Gun violence is on the minds of many Americans. Using the key
structural elements (for example, background checks are
needed), encourage politicians to work with interests group to
formulate the language and set the agenda. Then mobilize
support in and outside Congress to advocate for tougher
background check requirements. Next, propose the policy
options stage and find a government agency (Department of
Justice) to implement new rules for background checks,
evaluating the effectiveness of the new policy and suggesting
improvements if necessary.
Your assignment must follow these content and formatting
requirements:
· Integrate policy concepts to demonstrate your analytical
insights from the readings and your own research with evidence
to support remarks about policy issues and problems.
· Demonstrate full understanding of the public policy concepts
and show that your application is relevant and aligns to the
learning outcomes.
· Develop your brief in a cohesive manner, with a logical flow
of public policy information from one topic to the next; ensure
evidence from resources support your ideas and topics.

7. · Ensure your writing demonstrates an understanding of the
relationship among materials regarding public policy obtained
from all sources.
· Develop a brief that shows focus on the topic, and create a
thoughtful presentation using the thesis statement to provide the
focus of the paper with enough scope for in-depth discussion of
the public policy concepts and application.
· Ensure the thesis statement indicates the position taken by the
author in the paper, and there is strong evidence to support the
public policy position.
· Developed a brief that shows expert use of the examples for
public policy writing.
· Appropriately incorporate at least two quality sources. A
quality source can be either grey literature, such as a news
article, or scholarly, such as peer reviewed/professional
industry references. In the case of public administration,
government or nonprofit websites are appropriate quality
resources.