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English 101: Assignment Two

Due Dates:

Invention work:
Preliminary Research Due: Mon 30 Sep
Interview Write Up Due: Mon 7 Oct
History (Analysis your notes 1-3) Due: Mon 14 Oct

Drafts:
Complete Draft Due: Mon 21Oct
Polished Draft Due: Mon 28 Oct

Description: This assignment asks you to return to your thinking about the cultural space you analyzed in the first assignment. Here you are asked to find and consider any histories that have been written or told about that space. A history is a story that is told about the past of some place, thing or event. The world we inhabit is constructed by multiple and competing stories told about the ways in which it functions, now and in the past and the future as well. These stories (called conjectures in rhetoric) compete for our attention. They also shape the way in which we see the world, and hence they influence our activities and beliefs.

Goals: To use reading and writing to help you understand how history--the stories we tell about the past--influences our current activities and beliefs. The paper you write for this assignment should describe and analyze the ways in which histories of the space you examined in the first assignment influence current beliefs and attitudes.

Composition: Now you should be ready to address the problem posed by this assignment: how do the histories we tell influence our current beliefs and behavior?

1. Your paper should include your history of the space as well as your responses to the questions posed on the invention sheet. You may wish to rewrite portions of your first paper (such as your description of the space) for use in this paper as well.

2. Once again, the class is your audience.

3. The finished paper should demonstrate to us that you understand how perceptions of a space may differ over time and how the stories that are told about that space may differ because they serve the interests of various people who are connected with it.

4. Your audience will also expect you to persuade us that your reading of competing histories of the space is fair and accurate and that the conclusions you draw are based on the material you generated while becoming acquainted with the histories you studied and while analyzing the notes you made about them. You can best persuade us of this by stating your conclusions clearly and by supporting them with evidence drawn from your observations and evaluations.

Constraints:
Length: 4-5 typed pages using double space and 12-point font
Put your name on each page and number pages
Give your work a title