Revision Plan

Hello, everyone.

Your issues have shaped nicely and your historical-causal claims are smart across the board. Several of you are showing yourselves to be very apt discourse theorists, and all of you have demonstrated real expertise or ownership of some of the theorists we have read. Welcome to the final stretch!

Sometime between now and 5 p.m. Thursday, please do two things in a single post:

1) Write a revision plan for your Historical-Causal Analysis, a.k.a. "research form," based on how you will rework it after today's peer review. Believe it or not, this post is not meant to be busy work, and it is not only for my benefit. Consider this the last public statement you'll make (in this, class at least) about your writing and try to construct an empathetic audience. Please be specific so that we can understand your justification for why you will revise something, where you will revise it (in the paper), how you will revise it, and what concepts or principles from the class will inform that revision, if any. Remember that we need to be filled in on the details of your project and we need to understand your whole discursive aim with the paper.

2) Discuss more concretely the Repurposed Genre (a.k.a. "real" form) you would like to create. Remember that that genre should stem from your historical-causal claim, rather than broadly address an issue. What do you have in mind in terms of audience, aim, venue? What main principle must you keep in mind for its rhetorical construction? If at all possible, as part of your post, include links or references to similar genres so that we can see what you are aiming for. And don't forget that you can browse sample genres below.

Good luck and have fun with this. The more you can show, the further along you are! Please post by "commenting" below.

-Professor Graban

Conservation Discourse Browsing Project

Hello, everyone.

As promised, I have posted the handout with browsing and discussion questions for Richard Lieber's materials at the Lilly Library.

See you next week,
Professor Graban

"Real" Forms and Resources

Hello, everyone.

It is early in the process, but we will spend the next five weeks imagining, drafting, analyzing, revising, and rethinking your Public Awareness Projects in two forms: the "research" form (or, the historical-causal analysis essay) and the "real" form (in a suitable genre of your choice). I thought I would post some genre forms here for your perusal. What follows are links to various white papers, technical reports, digital ethnographies, advocacy documents, blogs, informational web sites, and brochures that may inspire some creative thinking on your own projects.

Of course, your genre form should grow out of your "research" form, so I am not suggesting that you decide on a genre first, and then try to shape a research project to fit it. Nor am I suggesting that you construct a genre form independently of how we have been theorizing empathetic, engaged, and civil discourse. I simply want to help you imagine the possibilities by viewing other genre forms that have grown from research projects.

• an informational website built around a Sustainability report distributed at Indiana University
• a related chain of documents for the National Resource Defense Council's "Call Off the Guns" campaign, responding to the bill allowing open hunting of protected gray wolves. It includes a webpage and message to members of the NRDC, an article, a television advertisement that aired on cable television, and an ENS news release on the outcome of the television advertisement
• digital ethnographies by Mike Wesch (Kansas State University) including "Information R/evolution," "The Machine is Us/ing Us," "A Vision of Students Today," and "Twitter and the World Simulation."
• the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report (IPCC) for 2007
• report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice
• informational websites for the "Bloomington Center for Sustainable Living" and the "National Park Service" (both are linked to our Course Resources page)
• blogs such as "Bloomington Alternative" and "Climate Storytellers" and "Tom Dispatch"
• any of the archives and repositories linked from our Course Resources page.

If you decide to incorporate images into your project and/or if your "real" form will be constructed around them, be sure to check out these resources for free, downloadable files:

• Associated Press (AP) Photo Archive
• New York Public Library Digital Gallery
• free public domain images
• Morguefile.com (another source of free public domain images)

Have fun browsing!

-Professor Graban