PROMPT: Poetic Gateway to Rigorous Research:

Creative and Critical Engagement

This semester we have learnedhowandwhyliterary devices are used. We have worked on 'showing vs. telling,' and the power of creating an image with words. This final assignment will provide the opportunity for you to write and apply literary devices to your own creative narrative. Reflect on the schooling narratives and poetics from this semester, which include Sherman Alexie, Langston Hughes, Gary Soto, Toni Morrison and others. Also, reflect on the various genres we read: autobiographical, fictional narratives, poems, vignettes, and testimonial.

PART I,of your essay will be to craft your own creative writing expression based on educational experience/issue. You may craft an autobiographical or fictional narrative. Within 350 words or less, you will write a creative response to an educational issue you feel is important to highlight and research. You must employ at least 3different literary devices, with a total of 5 minimum in the piece. This may be a poem, fiction, non-fiction. The aim of this portion, is to appeal to your audience and to create a rhetorical appeal to reader, using ETHOS, PATHOS, and/or LOGOS. Using literary devices effectively you will illustrate an educational issue that commands research engagement/investigating. [Please highlight or underline all of your literary devices]

Topic Examples:

*Mentorship *Bullying *Literary Rates

*Erased Histories *Language Immersion *Socio-Economic Resource Inequality

PART II,is a research portion of your paper. Based off of themes and your narrative from creative portion of your paper, you will now craft an argument. You will present a clear thesis statement about an issue that impacts the education system. You will research and have minimum 4 sources, 2 must be academic sources, that support your argument. Reflect on readings by Luis Rodriguez and Jonathan Kozol, along the films, like, "Precious Knowledge," as models that use personal experience and examples, as gateways to research-based writing/thinking/investigating. Thus, pick an issue or topic that you are invested in researching and investigating based on personal and/or communal experience. There are many educational issues that you can discuss; and this is an opportunity to craft an argument, and support it with research by using rhetorical appeals.

REQUIREMENTS:

• Must be 4-5 pages (not including work cited)
• Page break between Part 1 and Part 2
• Must be MLA
• Must have min of 4 sources (2 academic peer reviewed)
• Min. 6 paragraphs (intro, 3 body paragraphs (ethos/pathos/logos), counterargument and conclusion)
• Clear thesis + rhetorical appeals / researched support