Narrative:
For Module 1 and our first writing project, revisit your brief “new awareness” paragraph(s) from the response you crafted in the Summary of Skills and Syllabus (or construct a new one). Examine your “new awareness” for what assumptions you might be questioning. For example, Urban questions the assumption that only the unfortunate people are procrastinators as he declares that everyone procrastinates in some way. He also seems to align with the assumption that work brings success and most people strive for success through work. You might describe a personal “economic-related new awareness” that rejects or questions an underlying assumption about the importance (obsession?) of work in our culture (like procrastinating work leads to failure), or you may describe one that you have observed in someone else or in society (like a healthy society requires a healthy economy; live to work or work to live; work should provide a living wage; workers have choices to opt-out of low wage jobs). You may also explore the presumed relationship with work+procrastination if you wish. Your “new awareness” should question (or confirm) a commonly held assumption and slightly build towards the main claim for a narrative argument the way Tim Urban’s “The Procrastination Matrix (Links to an external site.)” essay does (see paragraphs 1-5, especially paragraph 5). Your essay should relate in some way to the joys/discomforts of work, but it does not have to actually use the word, "work,"  or “procrastination” for that matter. If you think about it, attitudes about work could be applied to issues in society, such as the claim that big unemployment checks lower motivation to work.

For the most part, you are telling a story with an added claim about the way something (view of work +/- procrastination) in the world is or the way it ought to be. If you want to, you may illustrate Malesic's or Urban’s claim, or you may complicate it, but no need to cite sources in a narrative. Your argument (main claim) should indicate this “new awareness” that you want your reader to gain from reading your essay, without overtly demanding it. Your purpose should be to subtly get your reader to learn about or see work +/- procrastination in a new way. That’s all.

[[for an example, see the example linked with this prompt, or <https://www.vogue.com/article/white-people-your-comfort-is-not-my-problem-black-lives-matter (Links to an external site.)> by Jenae Holloway, June 11, 2020, but your essay does not have to be as intense as Holloway's. One way to read Holloway would be to recognize the procrastinated justice in the workplace.]]

Begin with an interesting opening that will catch your reader’s interest and that is related to your “new awareness,” upon which you will develop your narrative. At a coherent and relevant point, only hint at your main claim (compare to paragraph 5 in Urban’s “Matrix (Links to an external site.)” blog; or Malesic's paragraph 8). Your strategy should combine narration and reflection to transform your experience into a “claim” that could show your reader a new way to see your subject. (In other words, your narrative should be relevant to more than just you).

Your narrative should describe observations or events that had some degree of personal meaning for you or for the one you observe. These observations or events do not have to be “dramatic,” “traumatizing,” “unusual,” or even “exciting” to have significance. Your narrative should capture a series of moments in time when you (or whom you observed) had realizations or saw something or someone in a new way, during the moments or later, upon reflection.

Your descriptions may indicate or imply what your view was like before the observations/event; it should give specific details, and it should indicate the significance of the story, and/or what can be learned from it. This “new view” may be implied or stated directly (this is a choice you will make in your writing). That “new view” is your version of the argument that you are trying to convey. Your “new view” should be of interest to your audience.

To read more about composing personal narrative essays, see Dave Hood's blog, "Creative Non-fiction: |Writing the Personal Narrative Essay (Links to an external site.)" (2012?), or search the internet for academic narratives, turning point narratives, epiphany, milestone, or new awareness stories.

Criteria for Evaluation:
Successful papers (earning a grade of “C”) will accomplish the following tasks:

1. Introduce your essay with an interesting experience that will catch your reader’s interest and that is related to your “new awareness,” upon which you will develop your narrative.
2. End your introduction with a clear point that hints at your main claim without giving your entire story away in the first paragraph or two. (Try not to be writing your essay with the immense desire to just “get it over with.”)
3. Engage a reader (an SDSU Business senior) unfamiliar with the issue you are dealing with.
4. Use most paragraphs to describe, not tell, your observations or events that ultimately become your personal evidence/observations for your main claim.
5. Include a reflection on how your view seemed to you before the “new awareness” and what you might do with your new perception. This can be done in chronological or reverse chronological order.
6. Based directly on your main point in this paper, indicate what might make your reader think about this topic differently. Indirectly, what new insight would you want your own reader to take on the topic after reading your essay? Do this without preaching at your reader!
7. Use an effective structure that carefully guides the reader from one idea to the next, and thoroughly edit your paper so that sentences and vocabulary are readable and appropriate for an academic audience.

Key RWS 305W learning outcomes met with this assignment:

Þ       Evaluate complex print, digital, and multimodal texts that engage significant academic, professional, or civic issues;
Þ       Analyze and apply rhetorical principles appropriate to different purposes and goals, within specific disciplinary, professional, and civic communities;
Þ       Research and contribute to specific areas of inquiry by evaluating, synthesizing, and integrating strategies and sources appropriate to the genre;
Þ       Adapt and employ conventions to communicate with diverse audiences who are members of or affected by a specific area or discipline;
Þ       Compose texts reflecting the above descriptors, working individually and collaboratively, through processes of drafting, critiquing, reflecting, and editing.