Juliet Rodeman Essay 3 Documentary

Essay Requirement: Submission 1 = 100 pts Submission 2 = 200 pts

5 pages minimum, formal research paper, MLA format in-text & Works Cited page.

2 sources (books, journal articles, newspaper, films) beyond field interviews & surveys.

Assignment:

Write a research essay that creates a persuasive portrait of an individual, group, historical or social place, event, custom or ritual. Locate portrait within its specific cultural context. Before you settle on a topic, make sure that you are familiar with the available research. It is important to consult research at the beginning of your study, not in the late stages; you need to be aware of personal/cultural Tension Issues/Problem Questions of a topic.

So your paper must accomplish the following:

1. Documentation of a person, event, place, ritual and its cultural context/situation.
2. Do an in-depth field study, including on-site visits, interviews, surveys, emails. Collect Supportive evidence (keep Field notes - hand in with Essay Folders).
3. Consult research that helps expand and validate your own study and findings.
4. Write a thesis-governed argument essay that analyzes how and why the Issues of your portrait are of significance, value, or “worth” to your audience.

Tasks:

The best approach to documentary is inquiry and investigation based in fieldwork, on-site visit, research, interviews & draft revision. This essay is not a compilation of loose notes. Study must: 1. discover the tension issues and problem questions found in the subject

2. locate the “worth” or “value” – personal & communal –of the subject

3. develop a thesis governed essay that explores and analyzes significance

4. persuade audience how and why these portrait issues are worth pondering

*See 50 Essays : Zora Neale Hurston's How It Feels To Be Colored Me.

*See Art of Living theme – how & why does Hurston address issues and conditions of self, race, place, culture? Hurston's autobiographical essay offers a persuasive portrait that confronts issues of personal and cultural significance. While her essay is self-portrait, it's also a cultural portrait, revealing the conditions of society (& social groups) in which she lives. We see argument (angle/thesis/point of view) that elucidates something of the human condition - individuals (microcosm) in specific cultural context (macrocosm).

Your essay will not focus on self. Clear your topic with me after you've located research.

Ethos: A writer's job is to create an authoritative persona (mask), one who is able to illuminate the subject for an audience. We create a reliable, trustworthy persona by becoming an expert on a limited topic. We go into the field with what we know, but we do not rely on what we know. We enter, admitting our own “filters” shaped by personal background, but open to the discovery inherent in fieldwork and research. Often, we are humbled, taught, and moved by the encounter with our subjects. We hope our essays establish a contemporary conversation worth pondering. We join a comradeship of inquiry and research; we set our findings before an audience, becoming part agency of a more perceptive, responsible, humane community.

reproduced for online posting by Rachel Brekhus, brekhusr@missouri.edu