WRD 110 Inquiry Essay (In Steps) In the inquiry essay, I’m asking you to select at least three (3) of the seven (7) items you should have noted in your journal to explore a little further. After selecting at least three (3) of your items that you think are places of possible future research, flesh these topics out and begin to dig a little deeper—what do these topics have under their surfaces? The inquiry essay is designed as a tool for exploration of ideas and questions. This will be the first step toward our final projects. Many of you are accustomed to creating an argument—taking a position on something and proving it. That is not what this essay will do. Instead, you will walk in Savini’s steps: noticing what is going on around you; identifying and articulating potential problems with what you notice; posing fruitful questions about your potential problem; and identifying what is at stake as you explore your campus and community. This project will provide the first step to your topic selection for your final project, so take your time. You can think of your essay being structured in sections: 1. Identify what you noticed – describe these objects or items as if the reader of your essay has not seen these things before, or as if they might not have ever encountered them. What are they? What do they look like, where are they found? a. Think also about how we talked about rhetoric—what are the rhetorical features of the object? What does it aim to communicate with us? 2. What kinds of problems, conflicts, stories, or questions are present in the things you noticed? a. Compare objects from the same genre or on the same topic and identify tensions or contradictions in terms of their ideas and or definitions of key concepts. b. Identify conflict between your own experiences and the theories or arguments offered by the object. c. What is the story? Not all things have obvious problems, but usually all have stories. d. Identify troubling assumptions that underlie the central arguments/ideas of a of an object. e. Note a gap or something relevant the object overlooks. What is missing? f. What are the effects of the features that you noticed—go deep, below the surface of the object. What does it mean for other people to see this, read this, view this, etc.? 3. What kinds of fruitful questions can you ask about the objects you’ve chosen? a. What can you ask about the purpose behind the effects of what you noticed? What is it doing? Is it making an implicit or explicit argument? b. While you aren’t doing research in this essay, you can speculate. Be creative. What kinds of answers can you imagine to the questions you pose? In what directions might these questions lead you? 4. What’s at stake in asking the questions you’ve posed above? This is the “so what” section—why does asking and eventually answering these questions even matter? You may not be able to answer this immediately, since you won’t be doing any research for this essay, but feel free to be creative once more. What do you imagine could be at stake? Why? a. Another good way to think about this is to ask yourself: who is involved in these objects and the questions I’ve asked about them? Who do they matter to? In other words, who is the audience? (E.g., college students? Parents? People with Twitter? This can be specific and broad.) 5. Reflect on this process in general. What was difficult about delving further into these objects? What came easy? a. You will eventually be asked to narrow your focus onto a single topic on this list and begin to do some research, hopefully answering and exploring some of the questions you posed and identifying what’s at stake in them. Now that you’ve explored your items of inquiry in a little more depth, do you have ideas about which ones you might like to explore the most? Assignment Sequence Part I – the Inquiry Journal - You’ve done this part—you’ve gathered at least 7 items or images and posed some questions about them. Moving forward, I’m asking that you locate in these items a possible future research topic. This purpose of the inquiry essay is not for you to do research. Instead, you’ll be exploring ideas that could make for a good research topic in the future. Part II – Prewriting of Essay (350-500 words) | Due in Eli Review by 11pm on Sunday, 9/17 - Use this prewriting section to begin thinking about which items or objects you want to focus on. It might help to build an outline, using the sections described in the inquiry essay assignment sheet, or it might be useful to make something like a web of your ideas. Based on what the assignment outlines, what do you plan to write about? What topics will you select? Feel free to use this section to begin writing the actual essay as well if you already know what you plan to write about. Part III – First Draft of Inquiry Essay (~ 800 words) | Due in Eli Review by 11pm on Wednesday, 9/20 - This is the first draft of the fleshed out version of your prewriting. We will conduct our first real peer feedback using this draft version in Eli Review, so while your first draft doesn’t have to be perfect, the more substantial it is, the better feedback you’ll receive from peers. And the more you do at this stage, the less work you’ll do heading into the final draft! Part IV – Final Draft of Inquiry Essay (~ 1000 words) | Due on Canvas by 11pm Monday, 10/2 - Taking into consideration your peer and instructor feedback, this is your revised draft of the inquiry essay, which you’ll submit on Canvas. - Due on Canvas because it’s the final form of this essay (think of Eli as a place for work in progress— Canvas is for final submissions) *If you have questions, please do not hesitate to email me or storm the office—that’s POT 1222. Office hours are 11am-12pm TR; 2-3pm W.
