instructor: Jentery Sayers 
~ classroom: smi 309 
& ougl 101 ~ TTh: 9:30-11:20
Response Paper 1.4: Writing Sound, Sound Writing [ Submit It Now! ]
Due: Tuesday, February 5th (length: two to three pages)
See Related .pdf for Pre-writing and Research: Sound-Script Worksheet!
Asking productive research questions is central to academic argumentation. Productive questions engage multiple angles on an issue and often generate as many new questions as they do answers. Given that your audience always enters your writing with a set of expectations, productive questions (and complex arguments) are also written in a way that acknowledge previous work on, as well as existing beliefs and assumptions about, the issue at hand. That way, sophisticated claims and lines of inquiry emerge from how—and not just to what—we read, listen, and write.
The goals for Response Paper 1.4 are:
- To use peer review in the service of your own writing.
- To incorporate counterarguments into your claims-making and lines of inquiry.
- To return to your first sequence compositions, critique them, and augment them.
- To practice your writing as a process.
- To begin composing your primary source/artifact for your first major paper.
For Response Paper 1.4, you will exchange Response Paper 1.3 with your sequence one peer. Then, you will carefully read, annotate, and analyze your peer’s academic argument for what’s missing from your 1.2 .
After you have read the paper, write a two- to three-page letter to your peer that responds to her or his 1.3 claim . In your letter, you should state—and argue for—a specific research question that you will be addressing in your Major Paper 1. This question should emerge from your peer’s Response Paper 1.3, in particular, and your first sequence writing, in general.
Your letter should include a complex claim that states your research question and for whom, how, and for what purposes it matters. To support your claim, you should:
- Include evidence from your peer’s 1.3.
- Include evidence from at least one of your first sequence compositions (including your response papers, podcasts, and blog entries).
- Introduce your Major Paper 1 “sound-script” idea to your peer. (See the MP1 prompt for more.)
- Articulate for your peer how your new sound-script and Major Paper 1 will engage your research question.
Keep in mind that you are writing a letter, not an academic argument. How will your tone and language change? How do the conventions for letter-writing differ from academic writing? Finally, how will your audience impact your writing choices?
Your audience is your sequence one peer. While the letter need not be formal, like an academic argument, it should nevertheless be mindful of your peer’s expectations and her or his roles as your 121 cohort.
Targeted Outcomes
1: Your paper should adhere to the conventions of letter-writing and demonstrate an awareness of your peer’s expectations.
2: Your paper should use both your and your peer’s writing as evidence, intertextualizing them in the service of your claim.
3: Your paper should be based in a complex claim that argues for a productive research question.
4: By responding to your peer’s 1.3 and returning to your first sequence writing, you should be helping both your peer and yourself prepare for Major Paper 1 and revise for your final e-portfolios.
Now Hear This!
Your Response Paper 1.4 should be two to three pages with one-inch margins, typed using twelve-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, and spell-checked. It should follow the conventions of letter-writing. Please submit the paper via the class drop box and e-mail it to your peer by Tuesday, February 5th. Thanks!
uw english | jentery at u.washington.edu
