Armbruster
WRIT 2072
Spring 2006

Assignment 6:   Letter to Congressional Representative

For this assignment, you will choose an issue at the national level and write a letter to one of your Congressional representatives addressing that issue.   (In fact, you should already have chosen one for your Media Representation Analysis.)   The goals of this assignment are to give you a chance to practice another form of persuasive writing commonly used to work for change while also learning more about national issues and some of the ways that change occurs at the national level.  

I will grade your letter   using the criteria for persuasive writing in general and for letters to representatives in particular that we have covered in class.           

First, respond to the attached rhetorical questions.   Although we will not be discussing them in a class period separate from our peer responding sessions, you do need to turn them in with your final draft (and I would be happy to look at them for you on an individual basis).   Please make sure to research your representative's history with the issue you are writing about and reflect that history in your answers to the planning questions .   (Don't forget that Project Vote Smart is a good resource for this kind of research: http://www.vote-smart.org/index.htm .   The Senate and the House also have web sites.)

We will conduct full-class peer review sessions on drafts of all your letters next week, April 18th and 20th .

The final draft of your letter, along with your rhetorical analysis and rough drafts, is due Tuesday, April 25th .