Module 9: Your Voice and the American Dream

Part One: The Final Paper

Writing is communication. It comes in various forms and serves numerous purposes.

In this module, you wrote a persuasive research paper with the intent to communicate your opinion on a topic to your audience and share your recommendations on the topic. While your intended audience is your instructor, you can also share your research paper with others. When you publish a document, you are sharing your work with someone else in the public. Not all writing will be taken through the publishing stage for mass distribution, but even turning a paper in to your teacher constitutes publishing.

The following criteria will meet the publishing standards for this module:

1. The student has produced a high-quality persuasive piece that is appropriate for a public audience.
2. The student has made sufficient choices about publishing to a specific audience.
3. The student has revealed his/her choices for publication and evidence of publication by submitting a publication statement to the teacher.

Below are suggestions for publishing your paper:

1. If you wish to pursue professional publication, conduct a web search of publishers, magazines, or trade journals that might be interested in accepting your paper for publication. Be wary of any professional site that may want you to send money to publish your paper.
2. Post your work on a blog for others to read and offer comments.
3. Conduct a web search of local, state, and national organizations that sponsor essay contests and enter your writing in the contest.
4. Submit your paper in a letter or opinion column format to the editor of a local or national newspaper.
5. Submit your paper to your school newspaper, yearbook, or literary magazine if your topic appeals to other students.
6. Share your information with a public official or business company.
7. Make a recording of your paper in the format of a persuasive speech and publish it to the discussion board for the peers in your class to hear and review.
8. Discuss another idea for publishing with your instructor.

Access the Persuasive Paper Rubric and review it to understand how the final version of your persuasive research paper will be graded.

Reflection

Submit a paragraph to your teacher explaining the choice(s) you would make to publish your work. Also, explain how you have tailored your persuasive piece to a specific public audience, making sure to describe that audience to your instructor. Finally, write a few sentences that describe how you feel about publishing your work.

Once you have completed the final version of your persuasive research paper with your Works Cited page and reflection on publishing, submit all files to the dropbox.

 

Part Two: The Persuasive Presentation

Now that your final paper has been submitted, you will create and give a presentation that summarizes your stance on your selected topic. There are a number of ways to make a presentation in an online environment. Your instructor might have you make a video of yourself giving the presentation, or you may be asked to make a presentation using web conferencing software. When delivering your presentation, there are a number of techniques that will help you. Click the thumbnail to the left to review effective oral-delivery techniques.

 

You are now ready to create your presentation. Please review the Persuasive Presentation Checklist for details about the presentation requirements and to review how your presentation will be graded.

Once you have completed your persuasive presentation, submit your file(s) to the dropbox.