Grace and the Grotesque
Writing Assignments & Student Groups (Path 2)
"The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."
(Galatians 5:6, NIV)
composition guidelines / Impassioned Pleas / Term Paper / path 2 groups
General Composition Guidelines
- deliver
a structured argument: triting assignments of any length will not resemble
personal journal entries, blog-style writing, or stream-of-consciousness
reflections. Essays should be tightly organized, with main points logically
ordered.
- evince
creativity: writing within the humanities is all about effective, persuasive argumentation, and not at all about giving the instructor the easiest, most obvious answer.
- pursue
a narrowly argued, debatable thesis: your essays should move in a very specific direction. Do not attempt
to touch on all tangentially related ideas.
- provide
adequate evidence: employ close reasoning and textual references. (Whether I happen to agree with your thesis or not matters not at all--just insure that it is sufficiently supported and logically, persuasively rendered.
- demonstrate familiarity with the assigned works: your essays should indicate intimate, comprehensive awareness of the literary and/or visual texts involved in your argument.
- evince polish: essays should show signs of careful revision. Go here for an explanation of my color-coded comments.
- Marchbanks' Pet Peeves
- When recounting events from a story, please use the present (not past) verb tense to bring the events to life; definitely do not switch back and forth, without good reason, between present and past verb tenses
- Avoid such vague, nondescript adjectives as the following, since they add nothing specific to your claim: "interesting," "unique," " "incredible," "fascinating," etc.
- Capitalize "Christianity" and "God" if referring to the monotheistic God of Christianity
- Place the period following any (brief) quoted material after the page citation in parentheses, not before the parentheses. By the same token, never place a comma at the end of a quoted passage unless the structure of the sentence demands one.
- Spell correctly all names (characters, authors, artists, etc.). "O'Connor" has no "e" in it!
- Use "who" instead of "that" when referring to people
- Employ a hyphen between two adjectives working together as a single modifier of a noun
Path 1 Impassioned Pleas (15 pts each, 60 pts total)
Students will post as "Comments" a handful of 150-200 word responses to videos housed at Digging in the Dirt. Be sure to subscribe so that you're aware when new, required videos drop during the quarter. These entries will help me get to know a bit about you and your writing style, and provide opportunities to express yourself in your own voice! Do not use generative A.I. Impassioned Pleas should:
- address at least one point made or question posed by Dr. M in the video
- back up your claims with specific detail
- evoke feeling in your reader: write with passion!
- capture your unique perspective
- be carefully edited
When assigning grades to students' brief responses, I will consider voice, tone, and grammar, so try to evoke feeling in your audience by writing with passion (pathos). You can earnestly plead, humorously regale, or angrily castigate, but take hold of some particular ideas raised in my video, and passionately respond. For these assignments only, you may use first-person pronouns (you may, that is, refer to yourself). Impassioned Pleas will respond to the following vids:
This is the most challenging type of writing assignment in this course, as it requires students to accomplish a number of things without going over the world limit. Do not be deceived by its brevity into thinking the task easy. (Also, don't list the number of words in your entry.)
- grade A: such a response will address specific ideas in Dr. M's video, and will express a clear and cogent opinion using: 1) grammatically correct prose, 2) precise diction, and 3) lively language enriched by figures of speech (e.g. metaphor, hyperbole, etc.) and/or powerful modifiers (i.e. adjectives, adverbs).
- grade B pts: this response covers all requirements of an A, but its structure could be tighter and its creativity edgier. Its diction could be more precise, and its phrasing more spare and exacting.
- grade C: this response conveys a particular opinion about Dr. M's video, but includes notable problems with expression (grammar, diction, etc.).
- grades D and F: these responses do not include all elements identified by the guidelines above.
Sample, Shorter Impassioned Pleas from other courses (make sure yours are 150-200 words):
Philosopher Illuminated by the Light of the Moon and the Setting Sun (1939)
oil on canvas
Salvador Dalí
Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu
