Your Own Unique Way of Sorting

          LECTURE NOTES

          On another page on this wiki, I'll post lecture notes about Division-Classification that focus on presenting your audience with your own unique way of dividing and classifying a topic. If you can't find it yet, I'm still working on it. While I finish the notes, you can read this assignment and your textbook Chapter 15, Division-Classification.

         TOPICS

          Page 345 of our textbook lists 20 broad topics you could consider as the basis for a division-classification project. They're all hopelessly broad and not at all appropriate for advanced writers such as you, but they are a place to start thinking about general subjects.

          NARROWING YOUR TOPIC

          An excellent example of a Division-Classification essay in our textbook starts with the very broad topic of Advertising. The problem with a topic so broad is that if it's divided and classified, the divisions themselves are so broad, even they would be too general for a short essay.

          Advertising can be divided into Print Ads (newspaper and magazine), Broadcast Ads (TV, radio, internet); and Brand Recognition Ads (naming a stadium after your company, getting your logo on T-shirts, getting your product into a movie). 

          Each of these smaller divisions is too broad for a short essay too. Broadcast Ads, obviously, can be divided into TV ads, radio ads, internet ads; but further, TV ads can be divided into 30-second product ads, paid infomercials for things like Sham-Wow!, and getting Oprah to endorse your book on her show.

          What the textbook sample does is consider not Advertising but TV advertising, not just TV advertising but TV product ads, and not all products but only beer.

          Once the topic is narrow enough for a short essay, it's time to apply a "unique way of dividing and classifying" the topic.

          UNIQUE DIVISIONS AND UNIQUE CLASSIFICATIONS

          What the textbook sample does is consider not Advertising but TV advertising, not just TV advertising but TV product ads, and not all products but only beer. Then, once it has settled on TV beer ads, it doesn't distinguish between how the ads look, or whether they show the beer in frosty glasses, or anything about the ads themselves really.

          Instead, it divides the ads according to what sort of beer drinker the ads appeal to. In other words, it's as much an essay about types of beer drinkers as it is about types of ads. The essay, Genuine Draft, begins on page 333. I suggest you read it carefully.

ASSIGNMENT: 5 Paragraph Division-Classification Essay

TOPIC: Begin with the very broad topics of Movies or Food

NARROW THE TOPIC: Of course, if you've been paying attention, you know both Movies and Food are too broad for an essay. Even if we divide Movies into Comedies, Dramas, and Action Adventures, each of these is too broad for a 5-paragraph essay. And even if we divide Food into into Holiday Foods, Ethnic Foods and Restaurant Meals, each of these is too broad for a 5-paragraph essay. So your first job is to narrow that topic.

YOUR OWN UNIQUE WAY OF SORTING: Don't settle for boring categories. Share something interesting and unexpected with your audience. Divide and classify according to your own unique method. Read "Wait Divisions" in your textbook to see how a pro divides and classifies something as simple as the many things that keep us waiting.

DEADLINE: MON MAR 29 2010