english 2 assignment

Understanding Assignments

What this handout is about.

The first step in any successful college writing venture is reading the assignment. While this sounds like a simple task, it can be a tough one. This handout will help you unravel your assignment and begin to craft an effective response. Much of the following advice will involve translating typical assignment terms and practices into meaningful clues to the type of writing your instructor expects. See our short video for more tips.

Basic beginnings

Regardless of the assignment, department, or instructor, adopting these two habits will serve you well :

• Read the assignment carefully as soon as you receive it. Do not put this task off—reading the assignment at the beginning will save you time, stress, and problems later. An assignment can look pretty straightforward at first, particularly if the instructor has provided lots of information. That does not mean it will not take time and effort to complete; you may even have to learn a new skill to complete the assignment.
• Ask the instructor about anything you do not understand. Do not hesitate to approach your instructor. Instructors would prefer to set you straight before you hand the paper in. That’s also when you will find their feedback most useful.

Assignment formats

Many assignments follow a basic format. Assignments often begin with an overview of the topic, include a central verb or verbs that describe the task, and offer some additional suggestions, questions, or prompts to get you started.

An Overview of Some Kind

The instructor might set the stage with some general discussion of the subject of the assignment, introduce the topic, or remind you of something pertinent that you have discussed in class. For example:

“Throughout history, gerbils have played a key role in politics,” or “In the last few weeks of class, we have focused on the evening wear of the housefly …”

The Task of the Assignment

Pay attention; this part tells you what to do when you write the paper. Look for the key verb or verbs in the sentence. Words like analyze, summarize, or compare direct you to think about your topic in a certain way. Also pay attention to words such as how, what, when, where, and why; these words guide your attention toward specific information. (See the section in this handout titled “Key Terms” for more information.)

“Analyze the effect that gerbils had on the Russian Revolution”, or “Suggest an interpretation of housefly undergarments that differs from Darwin’s.”

Additional Material to Think about

Here you will find some questions to use as springboards as you begin to think about the topic. Instructors usually include these questions as suggestions rather than requirements. Do not feel compelled to answer every question unless the instructor asks you to do so. Pay attention to the order of the questions. Sometimes they suggest the thinking process your instructor imagines you will need to follow to begin thinking about the topic.

“You may wish to consider the differing views held by Communist gerbils vs. Monarchist gerbils, or Can there be such a thing as ‘the housefly garment industry’ or is it just a home-based craft?”

These are the instructor’s comments about writing expectations:

“Be concise”, “Write effectively”, or “Argue furiously.”

Technical Details

These instructions usually indicate format rules or guidelines.

“Your paper must be typed in Palatino font on gray paper and must not exceed 600 pages. It is due on the anniversary of Mao Tse-tung’s death.”

The assignment’s parts may not appear in exactly this order, and each part may be very long or really short. Nonetheless, being aware of this standard pattern can help you understand what your instructor wants you to do.

Interpreting the assignment

Ask yourself a few basic questions as you read and jot down the answers on the assignment sheet:

Why did your instructor ask you to do this particular task?

Who is your audience.

• What kind of evidence do you need to support your ideas?

What kind of writing style is acceptable?

• What are the absolute rules of the paper?

Try to look at the question from the point of view of the instructor. Recognize that your instructor has a reason for giving you this assignment and for giving it to you at a particular point in the semester. In every assignment, the instructor has a challenge for you. This challenge could be anything from demonstrating an ability to think clearly to demonstrating an ability to use the library. See the assignment not as a vague suggestion of what to do but as an opportunity to show that you can handle the course material as directed. Paper assignments give you more than a topic to discuss—they ask you to do something with the topic. Keep reminding yourself of that. Be careful to avoid the other extreme as well: do not read more into the assignment than what is there.

Of course, your instructor has given you an assignment so that they will be able to assess your understanding of the course material and give you an appropriate grade. But there is more to it than that. Your instructor has tried to design a learning experience of some kind. Your instructor wants you to think about something in a particular way for a particular reason. If you read the course description at the beginning of your syllabus, review the assigned readings, and consider the assignment itself, you may begin to see the plan, purpose, or approach to the subject matter that your instructor has created for you. If you still aren’t sure of the assignment’s goals, try asking the instructor. For help with this, see our handout on getting feedback .

Given your instructor’s efforts, it helps to answer the question: What is my purpose in completing this assignment? Is it to gather research from a variety of outside sources and present a coherent picture? Is it to take material I have been learning in class and apply it to a new situation? Is it to prove a point one way or another? Key words from the assignment can help you figure this out. Look for key terms in the form of active verbs that tell you what to do.

Key Terms: Finding Those Active Verbs

Here are some common key words and definitions to help you think about assignment terms:

Information words Ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why.

• define —give the subject’s meaning (according to someone or something). Sometimes you have to give more than one view on the subject’s meaning
• describe —provide details about the subject by answering question words (such as who, what, when, where, how, and why); you might also give details related to the five senses (what you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell)
• explain —give reasons why or examples of how something happened
• illustrate —give descriptive examples of the subject and show how each is connected with the subject
• summarize —briefly list the important ideas you learned about the subject
• trace —outline how something has changed or developed from an earlier time to its current form
• research —gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you have found

Relation words Ask you to demonstrate how things are connected.

• compare —show how two or more things are similar (and, sometimes, different)
• contrast —show how two or more things are dissimilar
• apply—use details that you’ve been given to demonstrate how an idea, theory, or concept works in a particular situation
• cause —show how one event or series of events made something else happen
• relate —show or describe the connections between things

Interpretation words Ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Do not see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation.

• assess —summarize your opinion of the subject and measure it against something
• prove, justify —give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is the truth
• evaluate, respond —state your opinion of the subject as good, bad, or some combination of the two, with examples and reasons
• support —give reasons or evidence for something you believe (be sure to state clearly what it is that you believe)
• synthesize —put two or more things together that have not been put together in class or in your readings before; do not just summarize one and then the other and say that they are similar or different—you must provide a reason for putting them together that runs all the way through the paper
• analyze —determine how individual parts create or relate to the whole, figure out how something works, what it might mean, or why it is important
• argue —take a side and defend it with evidence against the other side

More Clues to Your Purpose As you read the assignment, think about what the teacher does in class:

• What kinds of textbooks or coursepack did your instructor choose for the course—ones that provide background information, explain theories or perspectives, or argue a point of view?
• In lecture, does your instructor ask your opinion, try to prove their point of view, or use keywords that show up again in the assignment?
• What kinds of assignments are typical in this discipline? Social science classes often expect more research. Humanities classes thrive on interpretation and analysis.
• How do the assignments, readings, and lectures work together in the course? Instructors spend time designing courses, sometimes even arguing with their peers about the most effective course materials. Figuring out the overall design to the course will help you understand what each assignment is meant to achieve.

Now, what about your reader? Most undergraduates think of their audience as the instructor. True, your instructor is a good person to keep in mind as you write. But for the purposes of a good paper, think of your audience as someone like your roommate: smart enough to understand a clear, logical argument, but not someone who already knows exactly what is going on in your particular paper. Remember, even if the instructor knows everything there is to know about your paper topic, they still have to read your paper and assess your understanding. In other words, teach the material to your reader.

Aiming a paper at your audience happens in two ways: you make decisions about the tone and the level of information you want to convey.

• Tone means the “voice” of your paper. Should you be chatty, formal, or objective? Usually you will find some happy medium—you do not want to alienate your reader by sounding condescending or superior, but you do not want to, um, like, totally wig on the man, you know? Eschew ostentatious erudition: some students think the way to sound academic is to use big words. Be careful—you can sound ridiculous, especially if you use the wrong big words.
• The level of information you use depends on who you think your audience is. If you imagine your audience as your instructor and they already know everything you have to say, you may find yourself leaving out key information that can cause your argument to be unconvincing and illogical. But you do not have to explain every single word or issue. If you are telling your roommate what happened on your favorite science fiction TV show last night, you do not say, “First a dark-haired white man of average height, wearing a suit and carrying a flashlight, walked into the room. Then a purple alien with fifteen arms and at least three eyes turned around. Then the man smiled slightly. In the background, you could hear a clock ticking. The room was fairly dark and had at least two windows that I saw.” You also do not say, “This guy found some aliens. The end.” Find some balance of useful details that support your main point.

You’ll find a much more detailed discussion of these concepts in our handout on audience .

The Grim Truth

With a few exceptions (including some lab and ethnography reports), you are probably being asked to make an argument. You must convince your audience. It is easy to forget this aim when you are researching and writing; as you become involved in your subject matter, you may become enmeshed in the details and focus on learning or simply telling the information you have found. You need to do more than just repeat what you have read. Your writing should have a point, and you should be able to say it in a sentence. Sometimes instructors call this sentence a “thesis” or a “claim.”

So, if your instructor tells you to write about some aspect of oral hygiene, you do not want to just list: “First, you brush your teeth with a soft brush and some peanut butter. Then, you floss with unwaxed, bologna-flavored string. Finally, gargle with bourbon.” Instead, you could say, “Of all the oral cleaning methods, sandblasting removes the most plaque. Therefore it should be recommended by the American Dental Association.” Or, “From an aesthetic perspective, moldy teeth can be quite charming. However, their joys are short-lived.”

Convincing the reader of your argument is the goal of academic writing. It doesn’t have to say “argument” anywhere in the assignment for you to need one. Look at the assignment and think about what kind of argument you could make about it instead of just seeing it as a checklist of information you have to present. For help with understanding the role of argument in academic writing, see our handout on argument .

What kind of evidence do you need?

There are many kinds of evidence, and what type of evidence will work for your assignment can depend on several factors–the discipline, the parameters of the assignment, and your instructor’s preference. Should you use statistics? Historical examples? Do you need to conduct your own experiment? Can you rely on personal experience? See our handout on evidence for suggestions on how to use evidence appropriately.

Make sure you are clear about this part of the assignment, because your use of evidence will be crucial in writing a successful paper. You are not just learning how to argue; you are learning how to argue with specific types of materials and ideas. Ask your instructor what counts as acceptable evidence. You can also ask a librarian for help. No matter what kind of evidence you use, be sure to cite it correctly—see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial .

You cannot always tell from the assignment just what sort of writing style your instructor expects. The instructor may be really laid back in class but still expect you to sound formal in writing. Or the instructor may be fairly formal in class and ask you to write a reflection paper where you need to use “I” and speak from your own experience.

Try to avoid false associations of a particular field with a style (“art historians like wacky creativity,” or “political scientists are boring and just give facts”) and look instead to the types of readings you have been given in class. No one expects you to write like Plato—just use the readings as a guide for what is standard or preferable to your instructor. When in doubt, ask your instructor about the level of formality they expect.

No matter what field you are writing for or what facts you are including, if you do not write so that your reader can understand your main idea, you have wasted your time. So make clarity your main goal. For specific help with style, see our handout on style .

Technical details about the assignment

The technical information you are given in an assignment always seems like the easy part. This section can actually give you lots of little hints about approaching the task. Find out if elements such as page length and citation format (see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial ) are negotiable. Some professors do not have strong preferences as long as you are consistent and fully answer the assignment. Some professors are very specific and will deduct big points for deviations.

Usually, the page length tells you something important: The instructor thinks the size of the paper is appropriate to the assignment’s parameters. In plain English, your instructor is telling you how many pages it should take for you to answer the question as fully as you are expected to. So if an assignment is two pages long, you cannot pad your paper with examples or reword your main idea several times. Hit your one point early, defend it with the clearest example, and finish quickly. If an assignment is ten pages long, you can be more complex in your main points and examples—and if you can only produce five pages for that assignment, you need to see someone for help—as soon as possible.

Tricks that don’t work

Your instructors are not fooled when you:

• spend more time on the cover page than the essay —graphics, cool binders, and cute titles are no replacement for a well-written paper.
• use huge fonts, wide margins, or extra spacing to pad the page length —these tricks are immediately obvious to the eye. Most instructors use the same word processor you do. They know what’s possible. Such tactics are especially damning when the instructor has a stack of 60 papers to grade and yours is the only one that low-flying airplane pilots could read.
• use a paper from another class that covered “sort of similar” material . Again, the instructor has a particular task for you to fulfill in the assignment that usually relates to course material and lectures. Your other paper may not cover this material, and turning in the same paper for more than one course may constitute an Honor Code violation . Ask the instructor—it can’t hurt.
• get all wacky and “creative” before you answer the question . Showing that you are able to think beyond the boundaries of a simple assignment can be good, but you must do what the assignment calls for first. Again, check with your instructor. A humorous tone can be refreshing for someone grading a stack of papers, but it will not get you a good grade if you have not fulfilled the task.

Critical reading of assignments leads to skills in other types of reading and writing. If you get good at figuring out what the real goals of assignments are, you are going to be better at understanding the goals of all of your classes and fields of study.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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ENGL002: English Composition II

Course introduction.

• Time: 101 hours
• Free Certificate

The intent of this course is to teach you how to prepare research for any discipline or subject. We will carefully explore and practice general research techniques and processes that you should apply to many academic disciplines and in your job.

In Unit 1, you will select a topic that intrigues you, conduct preliminary research to focus your topic, and develop a thesis statement and a set of questions to help guide the remainder of your research.

In Unit 2, you will learn strategies for conducting your research and taking careful notes. We will look carefully at researching on the Internet, but we will also make a point of honing the skills necessary to research topics in a physical library. We will explore some of the techniques that scholars use to record and organize the information that they plan to include in their work so you can make the most of your resources when you start to write. By the end of the unit, you will have completed detailed notes for your own research project.

In Unit 3, you will learn how to evaluate and understand the sources you located in the previous units. You will learn why it is important to put significant effort into reading and evaluating Internet sources and how to identify and what you need to consider when you use primary and secondary sources. You also will get plenty of practice in determining how and when to use sources to help make your point. By the end of this unit, you will start to understand how to determine whether any source is authoritative, accurate, and current. You will also have an annotated bibliography that will guide you through the writing process.

In Unit 4, you will develop your argument and create a detailed outline for your research paper. We will take some time to reinforce and expand upon the rhetorical concepts we introduced in Composition I. Like the prerequisite course, this unit focuses on putting your research to work to strengthen your academic writing. We will study how to use the results of your research and analysis to bolster written arguments and support rhetorical strategies.

Unit 5 focuses on how to use style standards and citation methodology correctly. This unit will help you clearly understand why it is important to document and cite your sources and do so consistently and correctly. We will closely examine the issue of plagiarism, noting the situations that can cause writers to misuse source materials, either consciously or accidentally. After completing this unit, you will write a complete draft of your research paper.

Unit 6 prepares you for revising and polishing your paper. We will provide you with detailed editorial exercises focusing on specific elements of sentence and paragraph structure, grammar, and mechanics, which will help you achieve your goal of writing clear, grammatically-sound expository and persuasive prose.

We will use the Modern Language Association (MLA) standards for citation and formatting. Refer to  this cheat sheet on MLA Style Resources  for links to the most useful MLA sites on the internet.

Course Syllabus

First, read the course syllabus. Then, enroll in the course by clicking "Enroll me". Click Unit 1 to read its introduction and learning outcomes. You will then see the learning materials and instructions on how to use them.

Unit 1: Research and the Writing Process

Researching and reporting the results of research are fundamental to academic work in almost every discipline and many professional contexts. While research in itself may seem like an enormous task when you are just starting a project, it is important to understand that effective research is a straightforward, step-by-step process. By practicing effective research techniques and becoming adept with the tools that are available to researchers, you will begin to see research as an invaluable part of an organized system of study that includes discovery, invention, critical thinking, and clear communication.

While writing is sometimes viewed as a solitary undertaking, research requires active involvement in a larger community of scholars. You will have a chance to define yourself as a member of many communities, and you will begin to see your research as an important part of the conversations that take part among members of your communities. As you begin to see yourself as an active contributor in a community, you will start to understand how others' work can both enrich your own perceptions and improve your understanding of the topic about which you are writing.

To help you get started as a contributing member of a community of scholars, we will first explore how your research can support the writing process you began developing in ENGL001. You will recall that the PWR Method is a process based on pre-writing, writing, editing, and proofreading, so it is probably no surprise to learn that effective research follows a similar process and is based on similar methods of preparation and analysis.

By mastering the essentials of effective research, you can train yourself to think more carefully about your work at every stage of the writing process. For example, you probably know how much a good quote can emphasize an important point. Still, you may not be conscious of how helpful general background research can be in the very earliest phases of your writing, when you are just beginning to refine your topic and clarify your thesis and argument.

As we continue to build your experience as a member of a research community, we will explore how effective research can help you appeal to specific audiences and more clearly define the purpose of your writing.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 16 hours.

Unit 2: Researching: How, What, When, Where, and Why

If you are already working on a writing project, you most likely are well aware that you often need to start writing to discover all of your ideas about a subject. In this unit, we will take the discovery process a bit further by exploring how identifying, analyzing, and making effective use of others' work can do even more to clarify your viewpoint and refine your thesis.

We will begin by looking at research as a concept. By now, you should feel a little more comfortable thinking of yourself as a researcher, and you may be anxious to get started. To get you off on the right foot, we will look at how analysis and planning can streamline your research efforts and help you make the best use of your findings. After that, we will dig deeper into the research process itself. Besides learning more about traditional library research methods, you will have a chance to get acquainted with methods for conducting research in person, on your computer, and on the Internet.

We will also define primary and secondary sources and will look at some of the merits of using both of these types of information. We will spend quite a bit of time reviewing the tools and techniques for researching on the Internet. You will have a chance to explore some of the most useful Internet sites for locating both printed and online information, and you will start to get a clearer idea about where to look for information in specific disciplines and to fulfill specific purposes.

Finally, we will acknowledge the importance of keeping research well-organized and clearly documented. You will get a chance to practice the best techniques for recording, organizing, and annotating the source information you want to use.

By the end of this unit, you should have a good understanding of how to carry out your research in an organized, thoughtful manner. You should also have the opportunity to complete much of the preliminary research for your final paper and to identify any information gaps that may require further investigation.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 17 hours.

Unit 3: Reviewing and Analyzing Your Sources

A successful research paper is more than a well-constructed argument supplemented by facts, figures, and quotations. Like the good writing that it supports, successful research involves planning, careful analysis, and reflection. Before you can incorporate an outside source into your work, you must take some time to think about more than just the facts and ideas you have uncovered. Is the source authoritative? Is the information substantiated fact, or is it primarily opinion? Is it up-to-date? Is it accurate and complete? These are just some of the essential questions you must ask about each piece of source information that you discover.

In this unit, you will take an in-depth look at some techniques for analyzing and evaluating the information you locate. As you review critical reading as a research strategy, you will look very closely at techniques for evaluating and comparing information that you find on the Internet and in print. You will learn some well-established techniques for determining whether a source is reputable and authoritative, and you will acquire some tools for discerning fact and opinion. You will also get to have a little fun as you complete a WebQuest in which you will find and analyze information online.

By the time you have completed this unit, you should be more confident about how and when to use the sources you have identified, and you should have a basic understanding of how to use your research to effectively and clearly support a well-developed academic paper. You will also be ready to complete your research.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 20 hours.

Unit 4: Putting Your Source Material to Work

Many college research papers are structured primarily as arguments supported, at least in part, by evidence gathered from outside sources. A major purpose of ENGL001 was to define written arguments and practice some techniques for developing them. To help clarify the close relationships between research and argumentation, we will use the first part of this unit to review some of the basics of formulating written arguments. As we do so, you will be able to explore the best techniques for putting research to work in your writing, and we will analyze how these techniques support the fundamental requirements of successful academic writing.

As we discuss the essential components, you should pay particular attention to how your research must support your basic logical structure and rhetorical strategy. This unit will give you a chance to get a little more practice in analyzing and developing written arguments.

You will spend some time investigating how various forms of research can support different writing strategies, including literary analysis, discussions, and comparison-contrast strategies. You will get some more practice in using research and analytical tools and have an opportunity to update your paper if you think it needs it.

Before we begin the more rigorous practice of citation and style in Unit 4, we will take a more general look at how to build quotations, paraphrases, and summaries into your work. You will be able to explore the best uses for all of these forms of reference so that you can confidently use your source material without changing its meaning, tone, or intent – or distorting your own.

At the end of the unit, you will use what you have learned to create a detailed outline that specifies what resources you will use to develop your arguments more fully.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 21 hours.

Unit 5: Writing the Research Paper and Acknowledging Your Sources

When you write a research paper, your work's success can depend almost as heavily on the work of others as it does on your own efforts. Your information sources not only provide essential facts and insights that can enhance and clarify your original ideas, but source material can also help you better understand your own theories and opinions and help you to arrive at more authoritative, clearly-drawn conclusions.

Because of the debt that you, as the author of a research paper, owe your sources, you must understand how to present, acknowledge, and document the sources you have built into your work. You should be aware that using accepted standards of style and citation can benefit you as a writer. When your references are clearly annotated within your work, you can see where your source material appears, making it that much easier to edit, update, and expand your work.

By following accepted standards to present your work in a manner accessible to readers, you also enhance your credibility as a writer and researcher. When your readers can easily identify and check your sources, they are more likely to accept you as a member of their discourse communities. This is especially important in an academic environment, where your readers are likely to investigate your work as a potential source for their own research projects. To put it bluntly, careful adherence to accepted style conventions in academic writing can mean the difference between great success and total failure.

In this unit, we will review the concept of plagiarism and discuss how you can use clear, consistent documentation to avoid even the unintentional misuse of source material. We will also review many of the commonly accepted methods of acknowledging and documenting sources used in writing college research papers. We will pay particular attention to the Modern Language Association (MLA) style standards because this is the most widely used convention in college undergraduate work.

This unit will culminate in an opportunity to build your selected source material into a fully developed first draft of your final research paper. By the time you have finished the final activity in this unit, you should have accomplished much of the groundwork for your final research paper.

By the time you have finished the work in this unit, you should have a command of the materials and techniques you will need to complete a well-developed academic paper. As a by-product, your final research paper for this course will probably be nearly finished.

This unit's final activity is to develop a final polished and clearly documented research paper that makes full use of the tools, techniques, and products that you have discovered, developed, and organized during the preceding four units.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 27 hours.

Unit 6: Polishing Your Research Paper

Now that you have completed the draft of your research paper, you will revise and polish it. Remember that writing is a process from the pre-writing phase to drafting to revising your essay. This unit will review techniques for revising and improving your writing in this unit. In revising your paper, you will consider the use of diction, sentence-level issues (like transitional phrases, grammar, tone, and so on), paragraph-level problems (like cohesion or relating the paragraph to your thesis), and incorporating proper format for MLA style.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 13 hours.

Study Guide

These study guides will help you get ready for the final exam. They discuss the key topics in each unit, walk through the learning outcomes, and list important vocabulary terms. They are not meant to replace the course materials!

Course Feedback Survey

Please take a few minutes to give us feedback about this course. We appreciate your feedback, whether you completed the whole course or even just a few resources. Your feedback will help us make our courses better, and we use your feedback each time we make updates to our courses.

If you come across any urgent problems, email [email protected].

Certificate Final Exam

Take this exam if you want to earn a free Course Completion Certificate.

To receive a free Course Completion Certificate, you will need to earn a grade of 70% or higher on this final exam. Your grade for the exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. If you do not pass the exam on your first try, you can take it again as many times as you want, with a 7-day waiting period between each attempt.

Once you pass this final exam, you will be awarded a free Course Completion Certificate .

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Grade Levels:

High School

Course Length:

Two Semesters

Course Pathway:

The focus of the English 2 course is the writing process. Three writing applications guide the curriculum: persuasive, expository, and narrative writing. Each lesson culminates in a written assignment that lets students demonstrate their developing skill in one of these applications. English 2 follows the model of English 1 by including at least one anchor text per lesson, but the essays, articles, stories, poems, and speeches are often presented as models for students to emulate as they practice their own writing. So that these readings may serve as proper examples for students, a high proportion of texts for this course are original pieces. English 2 also continues to develop students' reading, listening, and speaking skills. Readings include poems, stories, speeches, plays, and a graphic novel, as well as a variety of informational texts. The readings represent a wide variety of purposes and cultural perspectives, ranging from the Indian epic The Ramayana to accounts of Hurricane Katrina told through different media. Audio and video presentations enhance students' awareness and command of rhetorical techniques and increase their understanding of writing for different audiences.

Course Resources

Assignments.

The assignments in this course are openly licensed, and are available as-is, or can be modified to suit your students’ needs.

If you import this course into your learning management system (Blackboard, Canvas, etc.), the assignments will automatically be loaded into the assignment tool.

You can view them below or throughout the course.

Individual Assignments

• Assignment: Interest Inventory
• Assignment: Analyzing an Argument
• Assignment: Rhetorical Analysis
• Assignment: Infographic
• Assignment: Policy Proposal
• Assignment: Working with Literature

Multi-Part Research Paper Assignment

• Assignment: Topic Proposal
• Assignment: Locating and Evaluating Sources
• Assignment: Annotated Bibliography
• Assignment: First Draft
• Assignment: Peer Revision
• Assignment: Research Paper Final Draft

Discussions

• Discussion: Discourse Communities
• Discussion: Academic Argument
• Discussion: Critical Reading
• Discussion: Developing a Research Project: Audience
• Discussion: Locating and Evaluating Sources: Two Truths and a Lie
• Discussion: Integrating Sources
• Discussion: Drafting a Research Paper
• Discussion: Revising a Research Paper
• Discussion: Letters to the Editor
• Discussion: Working with Literature
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• Pencil Cup. Authored by : IconfactoryTeam. Provided by : Noun Project. Located at : https://thenounproject.com/term/pencil-cup/628840/ . License : CC BY: Attribution

Daisy Ridley’s ‘Young Woman and the Sea’…

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Daisy ridley’s ‘young woman and the sea’ gives new york sports hero gertrude ederle her due.

The actress had just completed a 500-foot swim, her longest during the production of her new movie “Young Woman and the Sea,” in which she portrays Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to successfully swim across the English Channel .

“I swam for as long as I could and popped up, and that was how we ended the shoot,” Ridley recalled to the Daily News. “I thought, ‘Wow, I feel so proud of myself after a couple minutes of swimming.’ This woman did this for hours . It’s still unbelievable to me what she did, because even a piece of it was so challenging.”

The biopic dives into theaters Friday, nearly a century after the New York City-born Ederle finished the 21-mile swim from France to England on Aug. 6, 1926.

Nicknamed the Queen of the Waves, Ederle overcame both the channel’s treacherous conditions and the inequality facing female athletes of her era to immortalize herself as one of New York’s great sports heroes.

She needed only 14 hours and 31 minutes to clear the channel. That was faster than any of the five men who completed the swim before her, including the previous record-holder, Enrique Tirabocchi, who took 16 hours and 33 minutes three years earlier.

But as the decades passed, Ederle’s triumph largely faded from public consciousness.

“I was baffled by that,” Joachim Rønning , who directed the film, told The News. “How come I don’t know this story? The more I talked about it with people around me, nobody really knew this story. Nobody knew about Trudy Ederle. For me, it became almost like an obligation to retell this story and put Trudy back on the map.”

The daughter of German immigrants, Ederle grew up on the Upper West Side but learned to swim in Highlands, N.J., where her family owned a summer home. It was in that beachfront borough that Ederle became introduced to the Women’s Swimming Association, which trained her and her sisters.

Despite a childhood case of measles that damaged her hearing, Ederle established herself as a world-class swimmer well before she tackled the channel. She set 29 U.S. and world records from 1921-25, including seven in Brighton Beach.

One of Ederle’s world records came in the 150-meter event, which she set during the Olympic trials before the 1924 Summer Games in Paris. That performance proved vital, considering the cash-strapped American Olympic Committee favored men’s sports and was liable to cut down the women’s swimming team, according to Glenn Stout’s 2009 book , also titled “Young Woman and the Sea,” that inspired the movie.

Ederle went on to win the Olympic gold in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay that year, along with bronze medals in the 100-meter freestyle and the 400-meter freestyle.

The English Channel represented a greater challenge. Known for its frigid, jellyfish-infested waters and its poor visibility, the channel was prone to fast-changing currents that were impossible to predict with 1920s technology.

Ederle was unsuccessful in her first attempt, making it 14 miles on Aug. 18, 1925.

“To swim the channel at any time is a huge challenge,” said Siobhan-Marie O’Connor , a silver medalist in the 200-meter individual medley at the 2016 Olympics, who trained Ridley for the movie.

“You have to be so, so fit to be able to take on that amount of distance. It would have required a huge amount of training,” continued O’Connor, who competed for Great Britain. “Fourteen hours of swimming non-stop. No breaks. You can’t touch any sort of vessel or boat. You’re constantly battling the elements without rest.”

For her second try, Ederle turned to Bill Burgess, who swam the channel in 1911, to train her. Helping Ederle fund the attempt was a contract from the Daily News and the Chicago Tribune Press Service in exchange for her exclusive story.

Her historic swim was likely longer than 21 miles in real distance, as brutal conditions that day prevented Ederle from following a straight route. On Aug. 7, 1926, The News dedicated its full front page to Ederle’s unprecedented accomplishment.

“Here it is several hours since I have accomplished the ambition of my life as a swimmer and I am rather at a loss for words to tell what I have been able to do or how I did it,” Ederle wrote in the Aug. 8 edition of The News. “I, frankly, am more than a little dazed by my success and by the abuse I took from the roughest sea I have ever encountered for any considerable length of time.”

Ederle completed the swim using the American crawl, a stroke similar to the modern-day front crawl. Ridley’s preparation for the film included learning Ederle’s technique, which required three months of training before production began in April 2022.

The London-born Ridley was no stranger to rigorous preparation, having gone through it for her starring role as Rey in the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy . Mastering swimming was another force entirely.

“I remember [O’Connor] saying to me at the beginning, ‘There is no way to supplement swimming without swimming,’” Ridley, 32, said. “We were swimming during filming and swimming to train in the weekends and the evenings, and then the big swim was at the end of the film. That was, mentally, probably the biggest challenge, because you just don’t know what it’s going to be until you’re there.”

Adding to the challenge was Rønning’s decision to shoot the film’s English Channel sequences in open water. The cast and crew captured those scenes over nine days along the Bulgarian coast.

“It was important for me to be out on the ocean and do this as real as possible,” Rønning said. “When we spoke early on, I said, ‘I don’t want to be in a tank. I want to be out there in the elements,’ and Daisy was so game to do that. … Never complaining, always going for it, lips blue and channeling Trudy Ederle.”

Ederle’s time remained the standard for female swimmers until 1950, when Florence Chadwick, also an American, swam the English Channel in under 13 ½ hours.

“Trudy paved the way for women’s swimming, but also women’s sport,” O’Connor said. “The trailblazers in women’s sport were so important to encourage women and young girls to … know these things are achievable. Just being told that you can’t do something, and saying, ‘No, actually I can,’ it’s such a powerful message.”

New York City celebrated Ederle’s English Channel conquest with a ticker-tape parade attended by an estimated two million people. President Calvin Coolidge hailed her “America’s best girl” and invited her to the White House. The International Swimming Hall of Fame inducted Ederle in 1965, and the National Women’s Hall of Fame inducted her in 2003.

Ederle died in Wyckoff, N.J., in 2003 at age 98.

“I believe her legacy is one of someone that did something groundbreaking,” Ridley said, “and did it at a time where it seemed impossible.”

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