Writing Assignments

Evaluation of Writing

For the criteria and grading used to evaluate the writing assignments, see the Grades page.

Assignment 1

Keep a week-long diary of your interactions with media. Then write a 8-10 sentence paragraph summarizing your use of media, as detailed in your diary. To complete the assignment, follow these steps.

  1. Download and print seven copies of the media diary chart. (You will need Microsoft Excel to open this file.)
  2. For seven consecutive days, use the chart to keep track of the time of day and number of minutes that you use all the listed media, and any additional media that you wish to add to the chart. For example, if one afternoon you listened to the radio from 2:00-4:30 and also texted with a friend from 3:35-3:40, you would list the number of minutes in the appropriate blocks.

      1p 2p 3p 4p
    Radio: Other   60 60 30
    Telephone: Text     5  
  3. Based on a thoughtful analysis of your completed diary, write an 8-10 sentence paragraph summarizing your use of media. Your paragraph should demonstrate the exceptional clarity, concreteness, concision, and correctness that distinguishes high-quality academic and professional writing. It should be well organized, opening with a topic sentence and including supporting details in the sentences that follow. Format the paragraph using MLA style, including double-spacing. Some questions you might consider:
    • Do you think this week was typical or atypical?
    • How much time, overall, are you connected to media over the course of a typical day?
    • What is the most important medium in your life? Is it also the one you use the most?
    • Do you spend more time interacting with people you know (interpersonal communication) or with mass media?
    • How much of your use is related to work, school, entertainment, etc.? Are particular media used only in one area of your life?
    • Are there noticable patterns throughout a typical day? For example, do you interact with family and friends more at night than during the day?
  4. At the beginning of class on the date listed on our schedule, submit the seven pages of your diary along with a printed, double-spaced copy of your paragraph. Your name should appear on every page, and the date should appear on every diary page.

Assignment 2

Writing Assignment 2 is designed as practice for the CMS writing assessment. Your essay should demonstrate the exceptional clarity, concreteness, concision, and correctness that distinguishes high-quality academic and professional writing.

Twenty-four hours before the assignment is due, you will be assigned a group of three writing prompts taken from the list used by the USG Regents' Test. (The letter of your assigned group will be posted in a separate column on GA View.) You should then do the following:

  1. Select one of your three assigned prompts and compose an essay in response to it. Make sure to note your group and stick to it; essays responding to prompts outside of the assigned list will earn a zero grade.
  2. At the beginning of class on the date listed on our schedule, submit a printed, double-spaced copy of the essay. Do not include your name anywhere in the document. Instead, use the following heading for page 1:
    • 900-xx-xxxx <your Laker ID>
    • Steve Spence
    • CMS 2010
    • <Today's Date>

On all pages after the first, include your Laker ID (not your name!) and the page number in the upper-right margin.

Assignment 3

This assignment combines our analyses of television and the Internet. The major television networks are losing huge numbers to online viewing right now, so much so that some trade writers are predicting that the networks will soon stop rerunning dramas altogether, and the CW has acknowledged that the relatively large amount of online viewing has convinced it to keep programs like Gossip Girl and 90201 on the air. To analyze these developments on an individual level, complete the following:

  1. Watch a current, prime time television program in some manner other than TV or DVD.
  2. Write an essay analizing your experience.
    1. You should explain why you chose this particular site for viewing a TV program.
    2. You should describe the experience, comparing it to watching a TV program on TV.
    3. Based on your experience, do you think that you will be watching more television online in the future?

Assignment 4

Write a paragraph analyzing the connections between specific information presented in our textbook and a story printed in the New York Times after 1981.

This assignment includes two steps:

  1. By midnight on the date listed on our schedule, find an article that no one else has claimed and claim it by submitting an email message to the class listserv. The email should have the following characteristics:
    • Subject line: "Topic 1: "Headline of your Article";
    • Message body: Citation of the article in MLA format.
  2. At the beginning of class on the date listed on our schedule, submit a printed copy of an 8-10 sentence paragraph that analyzes the news event using information, terms, and concepts presented in our textbook. This paragraph should demonstrate the exceptional clarity, concreteness, concision, and correctness that distinguishes high-quality academic and professional writing.