7-1 Project

Overview

Analysis is an essential life skill. You have likely performed analysis and not called it that. Maybe you are a social worker, and you went to a home visit and then had to create a report; you had to record or remember the details and analyze what happened before you could summarize the event and explain the actions you took. Maybe you were a soldier on a mission for the military and were asked to complete an after-action review (AAR). Maybe you wanted to write a letter to a community organization explaining how volunteering for them was a meaningful and rewarding experience for you.

In each of these cases, you had to think carefully about the situation, gather the most important information around a central idea you wanted to share, and then think about how your specific audience would need to have that information presented to them. Sometimes, you need to communicate to multiple audiences, and each audience needs to have that letter or report presented in a new way just for them.

In this project, we are pulling together all the skills you’ve learned in this course to help you show that you understand how to do a close, critical reading and analyze what is being communicated and to whom. You will also show that you can assemble an analysis that shares that central idea and how it works, and you can communicate that analysis with specific audiences, customizing it for the audience who needs it. As you can see, this assignment prepares you for a range of writing projects and tasks in other courses and in your personal life, career, and workplace. We hope you enjoy completing it.

Directions

For your project, you will create two versions of the same paper, an analysis of a written work. In the first version, you will explain the writer’s choices in relation to genre, audience, purpose, and subject. You will also write about the core idea of the text as well as the details that support it. This first version should be focused on the first audience that you selected. To submit this version for the project, revise the draft you wrote earlier in the course using the feedback you received from your instructor. Your instructor will evaluate this version based on your analysis of the text and on how you use evidence from the text to support it.

For the second version of the analysis essay, you will adapt what you have written to a different audience and writing situation of your choice. Adapting your essay means making changes throughout your paper to adapt your writing situation based on the needs of the audience and situation. Therefore, you will use the first version of your essay as the foundation for the second version of your essay, but with the changes to reflect the different audience. Your instructor will evaluate this version based on how you adapt your writing.

Use either the APA or MLA template linked in the What to Submit section to complete your project.

Specifically, you must address the following:

Part One: Analysis of a Written Work for a First Audience

In this section, you will analyze a written work and explain some of the writer’s choices. This is the first version of your paper. The audience for this version is the one you addressed in the draft you wrote in Module Five. This part of your project should be about 1 to 2 pages long.

1. Part One: Topic: Identify the topic of the text.
2. Part One: Genre: Explain the writer’s choices in relation to the genre of the text.
3. Part One: Purpose: Describe the writer’s purpose.
4. Part One: Audience, Purpose, and Subject: Explain the writer’s choices in relation to the audience, purpose, and subject of the text.
5. Part One: Historical and Cultural Context: Determine the historical and cultural context of the text.
6. Part One: Core Idea: Articulate and evaluate the core idea of the text.
7. Part One: Details: Summarize details of the text that are relevant to the core idea.
8. Part One: Evidence: Support your analysis of the core idea with evidence from the text.
   1. Include at least one quote from the text.
   2. Explain how this evidence supports the core idea.

Part Two: Analysis of a Written Work for a Second Audience

This is the second version of your paper. In this version, you will first choose and describe the new audience and writing situation. Then, you will revisit the first version of your paper and make changes to it to adapt to your writing situation. You will be graded on the quality of how you adapt this paper to a second audience, not on the content of the paper.

Identify a new audience: Before you get started with your second version, choose a new audience and writing situation by addressing the following items in a few short paragraphs:

1. Part Two: New Audience: Identify an audience for the second version of your paper.
   1. This audience must be different from the one you addressed in the first version of your paper.
2. Part Two: Audience Needs: Describe the needs of that audience.
3. Part Two: Writing Situation: Describe the needs of the writing situation for the second version of your paper.
   1. Choose a writing situation different from the one you addressed in the first version of your paper. Then, describe the needs of that writing situation.

Second version of the paper: Now, revisit the analysis you wrote for the first version of your paper. Adapt it based on the needs of the audience and writing situation you described in the previous section. You will be graded on the quality of this adaptation. This part of your project should be about 1 to 2 pages long. Specifically, do the following:

1. Part Two: Writing Style: Adapt your writing style based on the needs of your audience.
   1. Adapting your writing will require you to make a significant number of changes. While the core idea of your paper will remain the same, the style that you use to communicate it to your audience will be different. Additionally, the changes you make should be consistent throughout the paper.
2. Part Two: Writing Conventions: Adapt your writing conventions based on the needs of the writing situation.
   1. Adapting your writing will require you to make a significant number of changes. While the core idea of your paper will remain the same, the way that you communicate it to your audience will be different. Additionally, the changes you make should be consistent throughout the paper.