Essay #4: Exploring an Issue in the Arts

5-7 pages

Draft workshop: 12/6

Final Draft: 12/8

We have spent this semester cozied up with the question of What is Art? We have analyzed visual rhetoric for its artistic and persuasive effects. We have written our own creative works. We have engaged other writers/artists in print and on stage. We have walked around a dying garden in the freezing cold. (I loved that!) We have considered our Penn State community and searched for ways to define and redefine it within an artistic context. Now, it’s time to Go Big (before we go home), and engage this realm of the arts at both a broader and deeper level.

An essay that explores an issue doesn't so much formulate an argument (an essay that advocates one particular position) as it explores a topic in depth by examining multiple perspectives about it.

Invention:

For our last major assignment, you will write an essay where you explore an issue relevant to the arts at any level—local, national or even global. Some possible topics to explore:

At Penn State:

*The history of the Penn State theater program

*Creative Writing at Penn State (current? Past?)

*The Penn State Arboretum

*The Hemingway Letters Project

*Julia Kasdorf (faculty poet) whose newest book is called Poetry in America

In Pennsylvania:

                *Andy Warhol Museum (in Pittsburg)

                *Pennsylvania Council on the Arts

                *Central PA Festival of the Arts (aka, Arts Fest)

                *Falling Water (Frank Lloyd Wright house in PA)

National:

                *National Endowment for the Arts

                *Alexander McQueen’s couture legacy

                *Lady Gaga (sure, why not?)

                *National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.org)

These are just a fraction of the possibilities open to you! Where can you look for more? Why not start with the very first blog response that you wrote for class, in which you wrote about something you consider to be in the category of art. What was it? Think about your trip to the Palmer Museum. Was there a painting there that really spoke to you? Who was that artist? Did you attend Sharon Old’s poetry reading or John Edgar Wideman’s fiction reading? Did you go to Dave Housely’s reading? He’s an editor, remember. Are you interested in the history of independent literary magazines like Barrelhouse? I bet he’d talk to you about it if you asked him.

Yes, you can go to Google or Wikipedia for ideas, too. I want you to find something you are thoroughly interested in, puzzled by, entranced with and write about it so that an audience will better understand and appreciate it.

Audience:

So who is your audience? Who needs to understand more about NaNoWriMo? Maybe your best friend from high school who has always talked about how she wanted to write a sci-fi/fantasy series. Who needs to know more about the Andy Warhol museum? Maybe your parents who are coming for a visit and have asked you to find something artistic and worthwhile to do outside of Penn State.  The point is, think carefully about how to connect your topic to an audience who will benefit from learning more about it. This could mean thinking about people in your life who will argue the value of, say, Lady Gaga’s music, and figuring out how you might persuade them to think differently.

Research:

Exploring an issue will lead you to do more than just sit alone and think and write. You will be joining an active and ongoing conversation about a topic you care about, and will be honing your research skills (something that will help you in lots of ways, academic and non-academic, in your life).

To that end, your essay must include at least three (3) outside sources in MLA format to support your findings. Failure to have at least three (3) outside sources will cost you a letter grade for each missing source.