PB3A

The main argument of my article, “Big Rubrics and Weird Genres”, is that generic rubrics for writing and public speaking are unproductive and theoretically misguided and therefore they should be abandoned. In section “contextual dependencies in evaluation”, to prove this point, authors surveyed different departments in two universities and illustrated that, even for a same genre, different features of student’s paper are expected by instructors in different disciplines and therefore using a generic rubrics cannot provide a reflective assessment. During this process, authors recorded faculty members’ opinions about their writing expectations in WEC (Writing-Enriched Curriculum program) meetings in different departments to demonstrate that writing standards vary among different fields. Especially, authors provided many writing criteria from the Political Science Department in order to compare with other departments. I think this part can be transformed into a discussion/meeting agenda for students about how to write a research paper. The goal of this transformation is to reflect the argument that a good rubric should discipline-based. To accomplish this goal, I have two different plans:1) write two agendas for students of two different classes, political science and physics. By comparing two agendas, the audience can notice that even for an exactly same genre, the requirement and assessment vary among different fields. 2)I can combine two agendas into a bigger one concerning how to write a good research paper in general. In this bigger agenda, the purpose is to inform students that the benchmark for a good research paper differs in different disciplines. The latter plan can more directly embody the author's idea but the former one is easier to carry out and therefore more likely to be persuasive. 

             I think the transformation into an discussion agenda is an idea closely related to the topic of this scholarly piece and this section, “contextual dependencies in evaluation” , because it illustrates that a specific discipline may require students to perform analysis from specific aspects or by specific analytic tools.

            For older audience, I plan to write an instructional article, like those we can read on internet or magazines:” How to Lose Weight Fast” or “10 Things You Should Never Do When You’re Angry”. In section “design critiques as a ‘weird’ oral genre”, authors analyzed the design rubric used to evaluate a presentation, which demonstrated a landscape architecture design, conducted by a student called Bethany. In the article, authors thoroughly interpreted each key criterion in the design critique form, mentioned Bethany’s grade and explained the reason in terms of the presentation's content and her behaviors. I think this part can be transformed into an instructional article addressing how to present your design. Since authors have clearly stated each important element contributing to a good presentation, I just need to change tone and wording to make its style similar to an instructional article, such as using “you” to refer to the audience. Also, authors described many Bethany’s behaviors that caused her to achieve a poor grade and some elements her presentation lacked. I can make use of these information to transform them into multiple tips, “things that you should never do in your presentation”, which are very magazine-y.
               From my perspective, an instructional article is a suitable genre that can effectively bear the original information of this part of article. Also, by teaching people what they should be careful about during a presentation, such as responses to the audience, visuals or the argument, it reflects the main idea of the author in this section that the pedagogy of public speaking is much more complicated than teaching students to achieve some simplified goals(such as to inform or to persuade);it should be discipline-based.