Assignment One: Letter to the Editor

English 102: Assignment One
Dear Editor . . .
Sincerely, Lost in Phoenix

What You’ll Be Doing—Description:
This assignment is twofold: the first section will consist of a letter to the editor of a publication, the second section will be a reflection and analysis concerning the decisions that you’ve made in your letter in regards to that unique rhetorical situation.

What We Hope To Accomplish—Goals:
We are looking primarily at the rhetorical aspects of audience and situation as they apply to even the smallest written arguments. We will identify the various and unique audiences of our specific writing situations, taking into account the imagined audience, the ideal audience and the actual audience. We will also consider how best to appeal to sympathetic, neutral and resistant audiences.

We will also consider issues of medium and purpose. How do we construct our arguments to meet the specific needs of a publication? In this particular case, how do we reflect the depth and complexity of our arguments in such a short span of words? How do we make and support our claims? How do we pare down the scope or breadth of our arguments? Etc.

How You’ll Be Doing It—Composition:

1. Decide upon a publication and conduct some study of (read a bunch of) the letters that have been published. The publication might be a local newspaper, national magazine, online journal or weekly entertainment and events magazine (we have something called The New Times in Phoenix that covers entertainment but also does some investigative reporting—usually with a leftist bent). It would be best to choose a publication that you read relatively often. Don’t limit yourself to the serious stuff, like Newsweek—have some fun with this.
2. Explore that publication’s particular expectations for form and content.
3. Develop a working outline of the letter—since the format for most letters is relatively small, you have very little space with which to make your point. Therefore, the organization is extremely important to the success of your writing.
4. Compose the letter and the reflection and submit these to a peer review.
5. Revise the letter and the reflection, and submit those to me for a grade.

What It Should Look Like—Constraints:

• Length: the letter itself should be roughly as long as the majority of the letters published in your chosen magazine or newspaper. A quick review of today’s (1/17/07) New York Times letters revealed that the shortest letter was 58 words, and the longest was 162. Letters in The Arizona Republic were between 52 and 318 words. The reflection will likely be significantly longer than the letter, but I have not assigned a length requirement, as length is often dependent upon form and content.
  A Warning About Length: Choosing a publication with relatively shorter letters will not necessarily make your job easier as you still need to construct complex arguments—supporting claims with evidence or reason. In fact, your job may be significantly more difficult if you have less space within which to cast your argument.
• The first section should, in fact, take the form of a letter—follow standard business letter procedures in this case.
• The reflection should be typed in 12 point font and double spaced using one inch margins. These requirements are not an arbitrary obsession with form; studies have shown that teachers react in different ways to different formatting. By standardizing your paper format, I can guarantee us both an equitable reading of your work.