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Unit 1: Initial Inquiry Length: 1500 words minimum (does not include reflective letter) Audience: Instructor and classmates Draft Due: Wednesday, January 25 Final Due: Friday, February 3 Learning Goals: At the end of this unit, you will be able to: • Practice critical reading strategies • Generate and pursue lines of inquiry and search, collect, and select sources appropriate to your writing project • Effectively use and appropriately cite sources in your writing • Provide revision-based response to your peers • Reflect on your writing processes and self-assess as writers This first assignment consists of two closely related parts: the identification of a topic you’d like to discuss this semester, and a rhetorical analysis of a scholarly document that address that topic. As the first step in this process, you’ll want to identify a problem or a debate or an unknown within your field of study. For this assignment, we’re looking at the problem itself, not presenting the solution. Be sure to focus on the current conversations taking place among professionals about this topic—that is, avoid issues that the general public may not know the solutions to, but professionals do. In the essay itself, first introduce and explain the topic to your audience. Here are some questions to guide you: • What is your topic/issue? Be as specific as possible in your discussion. • What are some of the issues of conflict in your discipline surrounding this topic? (Try to have more than two. Generally, academic arguments are not so easily reduced to pro and con.) Where do experts in the field disagree? Or, what are some aspects of your issue that are unknown (i.e. scholars might know that the problem exists but not its solution)? • Why is it relevant to your discipline currently? What’s the conversation about this issue now? • Why hasn’t this problem been solved already, or why is there still a debate about this issue? (If “the answer” is already clearly established, without any doubt, in your field, there’s no reason for you to grapple with it.) This is what’s known as the motive of the discussion. • What are the specific questions you want to pursue about this problem or debate? For the second part of the essay, you’ll analyze a scholarly essay that examines, in some way, the topic you’ve chosen. (Although I’m not going to set a specific cut-off date, try to have as current a document as possible.) This analysis will not be a summary of the document; it will be a discussion of the choices made, thus giving you get a better idea of how professionals in your field communicate about important issues. In this part of the essay, address these questions:  • In what way does the document intersect with the topic you’ve chosen? What kinds of arguments does the document make, and what do those arguments tell you about the rhetorical situation of this issue in your field, or how professionals are discussing this issue? • What is the purpose of this document? What does it hope to achieve, and how does it go about achieving that? Namely, discuss the kinds of evidence it uses to support the claims it makes, the structure (paragraph order), the format (visuals), the rhetorical appeals (ethos, logos, pathos), and any other choices you note. Don’t just list these elements, but explain why they were used. • What does this text tell you about the larger values that concern those in your field, including wants, needs, biases, concerns, fears, etc.? What type of knowledge base does it assume of its audience?