Paper 3 – The Elements

Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire… They are the oldest and most common “elements” on earth, and we simply wouldn’t (and couldn’t) exist without any one of them. Your assignment for our third major paper is to explore any single ONE of these elements in as much depth as possible, discussing your element’s role on earth (in nature and in society) in the past, present, and future. How has our understanding of your chosen element changed over the course of time, and what role will it play in the future, especially with regard to renewable energy?

Please understand that this is an intentionally open-ended assignment. Your challenge, therefore, is to carefully select what interesting and engaging information to discuss, and, just as importantly, how to organize it all. In other words, there are countless things you could write about fire. So, what do you say? Where do you begin? How do you find interesting statistics and facts about fire? How do you correctly cite them without plagiarizing? How do you narrow down the information? What do you focus on? Needless to say, only a sincere “process” effort will successfully help you through this assignment, and it will be very obvious if a student does not make such an effort. Outlines (pre and post) and lists will prove especially helpful in organizing your information, as will multiple drafts spread out over the next two weeks.

IMPORTANTLY, there will be no rubric for this paper. Your final grade will be determined simply by how well you use your own personal process (the development of which has been our primary focus all throughout this past semester) and how well you make substantial changes between drafts. Obviously, I’ll need to see evidence of all this work in order to evaluate your final submissions, so please keep careful track of all drafts, notes, brainstorms, etc., and submit them with your final draft. IMPORTANTLY, failure to show evidence of your process work will result in an “F” on the assignment. And folks, let’s try to avoid the BS this time around. It’s more than obvious when a student hasn’t processed her writing. Not only do the last minute notes and brainstorms and print-outs look completely contrived, but the final writing is clearly not as good as it could have been, because it’s not final; it’s rough, and it’s very obvious from my perspective. Finally, keep in mind that my expectations of your work are naturally higher now at the end of the semester than at the beginning, so please take this assignment very seriously, and, as always, please email me at davidthorn@comcast.net if you have any questions or would like to brainstorm together. So finish strong! Go out with a bang! And good luck!

RESEARCH REQUIREMENT:As preparation for ENG 122, you are required to cite at least 5 outside sources in this paper, using correct research mechanics and parenthetical citation techniques, which we’ll briefly review in class on 4/23 (though they are in your Writing @ RRCC text as well).

LENGTH: 4-6 pages (not a single word less than 4 FULL pages, and not a single word more than 8 pages)

DUE: In-class 5/7 8)

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