My first course of action in writing the argumentative paper and literary analysis paper were the same. I first wanted to understand what my main purpose of the paper was. Both papers included trying to persuade the reader that the piece of literature in question was essential to the classroom. Once I realized this purpose, I knew that all of my assertions as to why “Learning How to Read and Write” and “Savage Inequalities” were great pieces for teaching had to line up and support each other. Therefore, my next process was writing down all the good things about the piece I was talking about. I took “Savage Inequalities” and made a list of all the different arguments I could make. This prewriting forced me to get some ideas on paper and the process led to more ideas. I wrote as many as I could think of and then chose the ones that were strong and that I could support well with evidence.
My next step was to find evidence to support all of these assertions I had. I wrote down all the logical arguments that could be made in defense. I did this for both the argumentative paper and the literary analysis. For the literary analysis, I did the prewriting of webbing. I really liked that process because it is similar to my own writing process, but a little more organized and visual. I am a visual person, so I thought webbing helped keep things organized. It also created paragraphs that flowed easily because the process forces you to see how ideas are related and similar. Once I have a general idea of how to argue my assertions, I begin my search for evidence from the text or from another source. This adds credibility to my message and helps the reader better understand where I am coming from in my paper.
In addition, when writing the argumentative paper, I tried to think about how I could relate to the audience and what they are familiar with. Since the audience was the English Department at University of Dayton, I tried to connect some of the universities core values with my arguments. I used the value of community at UD and the value of break out and service trips which are aimed at seeing our community affects the world around us. I also tried to think about what emotions I could appeal to in my audience. Since the paper was an argumentative paper, emotions can be important of persuasion, because it appeals to more than just logic. I used the idea of turning our backs on people in need to help emphasize the importance the “Savage Inequalities” had on students.