instructor: Jentery Sayers 
~ classroom: smi 309 
& ougl 101 ~ TTh: 9:30-11:20
Major Paper One: A New Sound-Script [ Submit It Now! ]
Due: Tuesday, February 19th (length: five to seven pages)
See Related .pdf for re-writing and Research: Sound-Script Worksheet!
By the time you begin the first major paper, you will have written four response papers, revised one of those papers, and considered – through a variety of media – the importance of sound in composition. You should have a pretty good idea of how the information you receive is influenced by context, "audiography ," voice, and the politics of speaking for others.
In order to mobilize your understanding of the first sequence course material, you will compose what I’m referring to as a “sound-script,” which is a soundtrack consisting of voice-over narration and, if you wish, other sounds (e.g., music and effects). The soundtrack is then played over the visual track of an existing film or TV show. Of course, to avoid absolute cacophony, the film or TV show is on mute while the sound-script is played.
(To help you along, I included a form for your sound-script at the end of the sound-script worksheet .)
The goals of the first major paper are:
- To compose a sustained and persuasive academic argument that is based in a risky, arguable, and complex claim .
- To use the course material, writings by you and your peers, and conversations from sequence one in the service of research and composition.
- To demonstrate the skills that you developed in sequence one response papers, blog entries, podcasts, and in-class workshops.
- To contribute to academic discourse in sonic culture and media studies.
- To exhibit an understanding of how sound and sound technologies influence everyday life.
The critical question for your first major paper is the research question that you have been developing throughout the first sequence and that you included in your Response Paper 1.4 . Now’s the time to unpack that question through an academic line of inquiry.
To unpack your research question, you should:
- Compose a sound-script for the film or TV show that you selected for Response Paper 1.2. Your new sound-script should be somewhere between one and two minutes in duration and somehow “revise” the voice-over narration of your selected film or TV show.
- Write a five- to seven-page formal, academic argument for your new sound-script. Why does your sound-script matter? Who does it target? And how is it responding to particular social issues?
Ultimately, your first major paper should:
- Make a complex claim about why your sound-script matters and how it intersects with an important social issue relevant to your film or TV show.
- Be supported by intertextualized evidence from the following materials:
- Your new sound-script,
- Your film or TV show (visuals or sounds),
- At least one peer-reviewed journal article or academic text outside of the course material, and
- (OPTIONAL) A selection from the 121 course material .
- Demonstrate an awareness of your sound-script’s rhetorical strategies and conventions.
- Use writing strategies that are proper to academic writing to argue why your sound-script matters.
- Include an appropriate title.
PLEASE NOTE: Your Major Paper 1 is about your new sound-script and NOT about your selected film or TV show. Your sound-script—and not your selected film or TV show—should serve as the primary artifact of your analysis.
Your Major Paper 1 audience is academia, which includes me, your classmates, UW staff and faculty, and President Emmert. Keep in mind that your audience is varied in many ways. As such, be sure to consider what information each reader requires
to follow your argument. What terms need defining? And what does your audience probably already know prior to reading your paper?
Targeted Outcomes
At this point in the quarter, we are going for platinum. All four outcomes are targeted in your major paper. Do your best to address them. To prepare, re-review the Outcomes for English 121
121 Detectives: Don’t Skim the Following Data
Your first major paper should be five to seven pages with one-inch margins, typed using MLA and twelve-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, and spell-checked. No title pages, please.
Register these dates:
Tuesday, January 22nd: Review and Discuss This Prompt
Tuesday, January 29th: Revising the Prompt Workshop
Thursday, January 31st: “Speaking For, About, and With Others” Workshop (in class)
Tuesday, February 5th: Articulation of Your New Sound-Script Idea for Your Peer (via Response Paper 1.4)
Thursday, February 7th: Conference Thought Piece Due (on blog)
Thursday, February 7th and Friday, February 8th: Individual Conferences Regarding the First Major Paper
Tuesday, February 12th: Last Minute Questions Due
Thursday, February 14th: Draft of New Sound-Script Due for Class Presentation
Tuesday, February 19th: First Major Paper Due (via the class drop box
Thursday, February 21st: Reflection on Peer Review, New Sound-Script, and First Major Paper (in class)
While you have deadlines for writing, your inquiry should be an ongoing process. Part of that process is addressing any questions that you have. That being said, let me know immediately if any part of this assignment is unclear. Thanks!
uw english | jentery at u.washington.edu
