Details

To be a Genre

Purpose
To apply your awareness and understanding of a given text’s relationship to the conventions of its genre and to use that insight to produce an analysis of the rhetorical work the text is doing through genre.

Assignment
Identify the genre, genre features, and genre conventions applicable to Doctorow’s For the Win. (Pro Tip: Revisit the chapter on genre in AGWR, the readings on what YA is and does that we recently engaged with, and previous discussion posts to help you get started.) Then write an argument in which you explain the relationship of this text to its genre, and what implications can be drawn from that relationship and the rhetorical work Doctorow undertakes with this novel.
Successfully engaging with genre analysis work like this will often require explaining how a rhetor acknowledges, uses, manipulates, and responds to genre conventions in the given text, and for what implied purpose and/or message.
For example, consider whether the text follows genre conventions or if it only appears to follow genre expectations while in reality challenging them. If this is the case, what might the rhetor be implicitly trying to say or accomplish through the text? Consider what YA literature as a genre might aim to do and how it might aim to accomplish those goals; in what ways do we see FTW taking on those goals/strategies or not?
While secondary sources beyond the text you are analyzing may not be required, you are still responsible for supporting your argument through careful selection and thorough analysis of textual evidence (specific excerpts from the text you are analyzing).

Requirements
A successful argument of this sort will often require 3-4 pages of recorded brain work, typed and double-spaced, and presented in MLA format. Multiple drafts of the essay will be required, and substantial revision is expected. We will talk more about revising/editing on your own and with your class community. Secondary sources are not required, but as the author, you may make the rhetorical choice to include them if they will strengthen your essay. The writing should be error-free and the language in the tone of formal academic discourse.