Drew Kopp
CCII
Unit 2:
Unit2
Assignment
Persuasive Essay: The Documented Argument
Background: For Unit 2 you will select a controversy and then move through a series of writing
exercises that will call for different degrees of research. Beginning with easily accessible web sources,
you will end with having done significant research of academic arguments concerning the controversy.
The Unit 2 portfolio will include two distinct drafts—the first a public argument, the second an academic
argument—and a cover memo in which you reflect on the entire process (your experience during the
stages outlined below) and what transformations your writing went through.
Stage 1:
Selecting a Controversy: Use chapter 3 from A Little Argument to help you come up
with 3 to 5 topics that interest you. You need to do web research to acquaint yourself with
central arguments surrounding each. For each topic select a corresponding websource that
allows web users to comment, such as a blog, or a You Tube video. You will deliberate
with your group about the value of each and then select one. You must sign up for
YouTube and Wikipedia accounts.
Stage 2:
YouTube Conversations: Strategize how to practice arguing on the message board of
the blog or video of your choice (though it must directly correspond to your topic). The
traffic on the message board ought to be frequent, but not so frequent that your comments
will get lost in an endless stream of postings. You want to have the space to work through
a conversation between your group members while also leaving some opening for others
outside the class to engage with you. It also must be a video that permits comments.
You will need to develop lines of argumentation using Chapter 3 from A Little Argument
and Chapter 4 from They Say/ I Say. Assign members of your group (including yourself)
roles to perform these arguments. These roles include the “advocate,” the “antagonist,”
and the “interrogator.” NOTE: there will be as many on-line conversations taking place
as there are group members; each group member is responsible for participating in each
conversation.
Regardless of your role, you cannot simply agree or disagree. You need to supply good
reasons as well as evidence. Use arguments from definition, from comparison/contrast,
and from consequence (again, see Chapter 3 from A Little Argument and Chapter 4 from
They Say/ I Say). At the same time you can use the different kinds of fallacies to attack
another’s argument as false.
While you are engaged in this process, you will need to continue to advance in your
research of the topic, beginning to identify and document different websites and texts—
later this will become the beginning of your annotated bibliography.
Stage 3:
Group Presentation: As a group you will present a key moment from each group
member’s online conversation, highlighting what argumentative strategies worked and
didn’t work, and what impact your staged conversation had on the YouTube community.
For the Unit 2 portfolio cover memo, you will include reflection on the YouTube
experiment, especially concerning what impacts participating had on your developing
understanding of the controversy and the arguments surrounding it.
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Drew Kopp
CCII
Unit2
Assignment
Stage 4:
Draft 1: Using your gathered web resources and your experiments with the different
methods of argumentation, you will write out draft 1 of the Unit 2 assignment, which will
be a public argument. Write from the point of view of your projection concerning the
controversy, that is, write from the controlling value that you identify with. Your job in
the first draft is to bring the audience to see their purpose in the light of your controlling
value, i.e., as your context, thereby bringing them to entertain and adopt your purpose.
The audience you are writing to operates according to the opposing controlling value. In
order for them to listen to your reasoning, and so experience the emotional transitions
that following your reasoning will lead to, you must establish and maintain credibility. In
order to write this draft, you need to have performed a sufficient amount of web research,
which need not include academic sources. Draft 1 must be at least 3 full pages.
Stage 5:
Wikipedia: To begin preparing to write draft 2, each student, in discussion with group
members, will either select an already existing Wikipedia entry related to the controversy,
or create a new entry. The already existing entry must lack significant research and
citations, and/or must suffer from a single-minded perspective. In any case, your job is to
elevate the Wikipedia entry to a more academic and trustworthy level. One variation on
this is to engage in a discussion with the editors of a particular entry. In any case, this
project will require researching academic sources (which the needs of the entry will point
you to), and you will need to account for these sources in the annotated bibliography.
Stage 6:
Annotated Bibliography: The research you will conduct for the Wikpedia entry and for
draft 2 should be part of a sincere, open-minded attempt to understand and master the
controversy thoroughly beyond the work you performed in writing draft 1—its history,
context, and the various positions other researchers have taken on it. In other words, even
though it is necessary to begin with your prejudices, it is not acceptable just to hunt for
sources that support and justify your viewpoint; you’ve got to move beyond this initial
horizon. Use your acquired mastery of the controversy (through your extensive research)
to develop your credibility, provide convincing examples and arguments, thereby evoking
various emotions in your intended audience.
Research Requirements: at least 10 total sources, which must include:
• At least three sources that are books (at least one scholarly book).
• At least three sources that are scholarly journal articles.
• At least four of these sources must express divergent viewpoints.
Remaining sources, to make up at least 10, may include most anything else: websites,
films, interviews, newspaper and/or magazine articles, photographs. When in doubt, ask
me. In any case, all sources must be cited correctly in your annotated bibliography with
TWO paragraphs:
Paragraph one includes a concise summary of the argument. These summaries
must also re-present the key steps of the argument and evidence used.
Paragraph two includes your speculations on specific ways you might use this
source in your documented argument (including specific quotes from the text and
thoughts about these quotes—make sure to cite page numbers where
appropriate).
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Drew Kopp
CCII
Unit2
Assignment
Stage 7:
Proposal: You will need to define the issue you wish to research and write about by
composing a proposal for research and writing. Your proposal is a layout of the
controversy, the fundamental question or premise that guides your inquiry, the network of
controlling values that inhabit the controversy, your position or prejudice concerning the
issue, possible audiences for your argument, a survey of the research you have already
completed and future strategies for research.
Stage 8:
Draft 2: Keep in mind that the paper must undergo a transformation. Draft 2 is NOT a
bigger better version of your first draft. It is a re-vision of the paper, wherein you address
the writer of draft 1 as your audience and work to persuade her or him to delve into an in
depth academic discussion and open up to a more nuanced, dialectical perspective of the
arguments surrounding the controversy. Draft 2 should be at least 4 full pages, including
significant research, with sources adequately introduced, and where signal phrases
introduce actual quotes. Do not leave any quote unexplained—always connect it back to
your argument. Create connections between ideas even if they seem too different. Do not
merely argue a collection of opinions. That was allowed in draft 1 to some degree, but not
in draft 2.
Stage 9:
The Cover Memo: In the cover memo you are to reflect on the entire process of unit 2,
which includes stages one through eight. As with unit 1, it is crucial for you to reflect on
how your writing developed as you progressed through unit 2.
Hints for draft 1: Your is to practice and develop strategies for rhetorical reasoning. How you choose to
employ the appeals and strategies will depend on your audience as well as your purpose and context. You
must exercise tact in addressing an audience to follow your reasoning. In any case, you will need to
establish and maintain credibility, inviting an audience to listen to your reasoning, and evoking emotions
sufficient to sway the audience to consider and perhaps adopt your viewpoint.
Hints for draft 2: Be in control of your own essay. Do not merely assemble a bunch of quotations and
hide behind them. The sources you quote should support your own “voice,” not replace it. Introduce
your sources properly, summarizing the key arguments while using signal phrases to introduce specific
quotations. Work to enter the “conversation” about your chosen controversy. Do not end paragraphs with
quotes; subordinate them to your controlling idea by explaining what the quote does to your argument.
Length and Format: Draft one: at least 3 pages. Draft two: at least 4 pages. Each revised version of
drafts 1 and 2, when handed in for Unit 2, must be typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12 pt., with
one-inch margins, using MLA documentation, which includes in-text citations and a properly formatted
Works Cited at the end. Please note that the Works Cited page is NOT the same document as your
annotated bibliography.
What to Hand In: Contained within the pockets of a paper FOLDER, include your cover memo,
proposal, and complete annotated bibliography. You must also include two distinct drafts, including
earlier versions with peer comments. Each document needs to have the proper date in the heading so that I
can determine what version it is in relation to the others. DO NOT hand in numerous documents with the
same date. While each individual item should be stapled, please do not staple everything together into one
bundle.
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