WRITING DEADLINES

WATU-Affiliated Writing Seminar:
Language and Popular Culture, LING 057.

Writing Assignments and Other Tasks

In a WATU course, students are expected to do a number of writing projects and to do them in stages so that writing can be commented upon, critiqued, help can be provided, and improvement takes place over time. We will be writing about language and popular culture, but we will be paying attention to the craft of research and expository writing as well. This requires deadlines which will be rigidly adhered to, and time management on the part of students. For an idea of what I expect students to do in writing projects, see Helpful Hints I also provide a `Critique Sheet' which I will use to critique your writing.
Please also look at this page for an idea of what the required format of these assignments is. Also, please set your word processor so that page numbers appear at the bottom of pages. (This will obviate the need for me to count your pages for you to make sure you have enough of them.)

Due Dates for Assignments:

Tuesday, September 20th:

On one sheet of paper, give three examples of new words found in popular culture but not yet given in any dictionary. Indicate whether the items are blends, acronyms, borrowings, or a combination of the above. (For more details of this project, see here.

There will be one (1) short project, involving a print-medium conception of language (such as print advertising or cartoons). This will be 3 to 5 pages in length, not including illustrations.

Rough Draft: Due Thursday September 29th:

Final Draft: Due Thursday, October 13th , incorporating revisions suggested in previous draft. (This is just before Fall Break!)
After Final Draft has been critiqued and graded, further revisions are still possible, and will be accepted until November 10th

Due Dates: Large Project

The longer project, based on material depicted or represented in electronic visual media such as movies or television.

Schedule:

Thursday October 27th
Hand in a statement of purpose and bibliography/filmography of your intended project. What you will do, how you will do it, how you will relate it to themes and material covered in this course. (Hallowe'en comes right after this; don't start to party too early).
Thursday, November 10th
Hand in some connected prose writing that begins to address the issues you wish to deal with in your project. We will be looking for content as well as good form here.

It would be good to have this organized as sort of an outline with headings and subheadings, so that your connected prose, where there are gaps (you haven't done all the work yet) will be filled with outline. Think of this as an outline with some prose in it rather than loosely connected prose. See the following sample.

Tuesday, November 22rd: This is just before Thanksgiving Break!

Hand in a semi-final draft of your project. This will be an almost finished product, as finished as you can make it, still allowing for some critique by your instructors, to give you time to polish it some more by the end of the semester.

Monday December 12th

Final Draft due.

This Paper (not in electronic form) will incorporate all the changes you will have made in response to our previous suggestions, and other work you will have done on the project.

The topic of the longer project is to write about some issue we have dealt with in class, such as science fiction representations of human and non-human language, or pseudo-scientific representations of animal communication, linguistic ability, social dialect, linguistic disability, etc. I strongly encourage you to look at this topic in terms of the metaphors they utilize to create and convey meaning.

To help you understand the requirements for this writing project, see Helpful Hints. A WATU Assistant (tba) will be available to work with you in the preparation of your written projects. The WATU office also has people available on a drop-in basis, and other resources are available to help students learn how to improve their expository writing.

See quick summary of deadlines here

haroldfs@ccat.sas.upenn.edu, last modified July 8th, 2005