Essay 3
First draft due Wednesday, November 19
Final draft due Tuesday, November 25
4-6 pages, typed, double-spaced, and stapled
For this assignment you will write an analytical essay about a YouTube video. The video should have at least 5,000 views, and ideally the video addresses a subject that you are interested in.
Your essay might take one of three forms:
- Cultural criticism. If you write this kind of essay you will interpret your video either in terms of what it reveals about a US-based YouTube cultural milieu or what it reveals about the ideology of the YouTuber. You can think of a cultural milieu as one that is defined by the comments of the video or one that is defined by a specific cultural scene.
- Technical evaluation. If you write this kind of essay you will analyze a video as an expert who draws on experience to either evaluate techniques that are presented in the video or interpret the video for an audience that is not aware of the cultural milieu that produced the video. If you are evaluating techniques then imagine that you are writing for someone who is considering using the video to learn or refine his or her own techniques.
- Cross-cultural comparison. If you write this kind of essay you will compare and contrast the meaning of the video to audiences with different cultural backgrounds.
It is likely that your essay will contain aspects of all three types of essays, but your essay should draw most heavily on one type. Your thesis statement should mention the video.
The expectations for your essay are very high, and it is important for you to develop a writing process for producing polished and well-informed essays. You are required to post journal entries with your specific topics, research questions, initial theses, and initial research. You are required to receive feedback on an initial outline. You are required to have at least one other student in the class edit a full-length draft of your essay and you are required to edit the essay of another student.
The essay will be graded according to the essay-grading rubric for EWRT1A.