Model Family: Paper

Assigned: [date]
Workshop: [date] (Note: You’ll bring copies to class on the [date])
Due: [date]

As a class, we’ve begun talking about perceptions of people and the world around us, how those perceptions are formed, and what those perceptions might result in, both personally and publicly.

For this assignment, stereotypes are exactly what we’re investigating. You know what stereotypes are: they’re perceptions, conceptions, opinions or beliefs about someone based on some limited information about them. When someone holds a stereotype, it may be that their perceptions are based on an idea or experiences they overgeneralize. Stereotypic notions are frequently conventional, formulaic, and usually oversimplified. Stereotypes are misleading. They obscure people’s individuality. They can cause unwarranted pain or reward, and they often lead to injustice. And investigating them can be an important component of studying cultural mythology.

For your first essay assignment, you’ll be asked to think about a time you’ve been viewed, classified, and/or pigeonholed, and how your own sense of self has stood up under such assumptions. Here’s a chance to explore how you’ve held your own view of yourself despite pressure from others, or how others’ views of you have influenced your sense of identity.

Narrate an incident in which you’ve been stereotyped. Has a teacher ever categorized you as stupid or vain because of that modeling job you had once? Has someone refused to listen to you because you have an accent, or come from a small town, or run with the soil-judging crowd? Have people you don’t know assumed you were a meathead because you play football?

Has a local law enforcement officer let you out of a ticket because he/she recognized you as a local “good kid”? Has someone looked at you and decided you were too young, too poor, or too different to be in a particular place? Have you been misread because of your body (sex, race, age, weight) or your self-presentation (clothes, gestures, nose ring, tattoo)?

Why were you stereotyped then? Help your readers see what those onlookers might have seen—in other words, read the culture surrounding you at that place and time. In what conditions and contexts were you stereotyped? Why might folks have interpreted you in that way? What assumptions might they have brought to the setting, and why? What other things might they have seen (your pierced septum, a frightening “Dateline NBC”) that supported their “reading” of you? Specific details will help develop a fuller picture of what you’re describing–there are good opportunities here for compassionate and thoughtful examination of the world at that moment.

Ultimately, what has that incident meant to you? How were you affected in that moment? How were you affected in the long term: How have people’s views of you been significant in your own identity formation? So what if people misread you–how has that affected your life? How has your own sense of self formed in response to, or in reaction to, others’ stereotypic notions about you? Do you ever feel compelled to defy a stereotype–to ensure that you don’t fit the pattern people have assumed you would fall into?

Details: This paper should be 4-5 pages long, following the standard format outlined in your syllabus.
For this assignment, your grade will be 80% content, 20% mechanics.
Remember to keep all your drafts along the way, and your workshop notes, and anything else that went into building this paper: you’ll turn them all in together, and after that they’ll live quietly in your 8-pocket folder until the middle of the semester.

Grading: For this first assignment, which is more narrative in nature, there are many, many ways to make a good paper. Here are some general guidelines and a few of my biases:

First, write in a clear and authentic voice. In general, I value sounding honest and “real” over sounding stuffy and smart. (Maybe later in the semester we’ll work on “stuffy and smart,” because there are times you’ll need to do that. Just not today.)

1. Think of this one as telling a story. It’ll benefit from the things good stories benefit from: set the scene a little. If it happened in a mall, tell me about the mall: was it a glitzy, successful mall, or one that’s dumpy and struggling, with really terrible snacks? What do you see when you look around? What do you hear? Show me the characters. Show me yourself as character. Show me the turmoil or confusion in your head. Specific details can really help bring your narrative to life. Have fun with them.

2. And be a thoughtful narrator. As readers, I think we trust narrators more when they’re willing to take a long, sometimes hard look at themselves first.

3. Organize your story in a way that makes sense. We’ll talk in class about a few ways you might do that, but there’s no set formula for this one. Just think about the bigger themes I’m asking you to address:

Narrate an incident of stereotyping.
Tell me why you think it happened.
Tell me what impact that incident made on you.
And tell me, more generally, what role other people’s expectations have played in your journey of finding out who you are.

Then figure out what makes the most sense to you, as you organize your thinking. Those four bullets can go in several different orders.

I’m always willing to look at drafts. Consider yourself invited to show me work, ask me questions, or seek more clarification. Happy writing.

Overview	Schedule			Impromptu Speaking	Formal Assignments
	Weeks 1-2	Weeks 3-5	Weeks 6-7		Speech (student-led discussion)	Speech 2	Paper
						Speech 2 Student Response	Paper Workshop