Formatting: Business Letter formatting, single-spaced, 1-inch margins, Times New Roman 12 pt. font (-5 points for incorrect formatting)
Length: 150 word maximum for pitch and 750 word maximum for the op-ed organized into 2 – 3 solid paragraphs
Bibliographic Documentation: Evidence and sources should be consulted and referenced as appropriate for the selected publication; thorough in-text citation is generally sufficient for newspapers and magazines.
Overview
A writer’s motivation to compose a personal narrative is for her or himself: to remember, to reflect, to meditate, for catharsis; but a writer’s motivation is also to create an effect on her or his audience: to entertain, to educate, to move the reader. In our next unit, we will focus on a genre of essays with one clear intention: to persuade. We will work specifically with the ‘open letter’ genre. An open letter is written specifically toward an individual or finite group of people, but published to a large, indiscriminate audience. Therefore, you have two audiences for your open letter: the specific individual or group addressed and the larger reading public. Often an open letter is written to draw focus to the letter’s recipient, whether to publicly shame the recipient or to force her or him to action. As you prepare to compose your open letters, we will read several examples in the genre that employ a variety of tones and argumentation styles.
The Task
Your task is two-fold. The central task is to write the open letter, using the tools of argument we will learn in this unit to make an argument of your choice to the recipient of your choice. You will also research a suitable publication that would have an interest in your open letter. As far as what publication and recipient you choose, I leave it almost entirely to your discretion. My requirements are that 1) you enjoy reading the publication you write for; and 2) you care passionately about your argument.
Before you write for a publication though, you have to sell your idea to the publication you want to write for – you have to ‘pitch’ to the editor. Therefore, the other component of this assignment is to write a pitch letter to the editor of the publication you choose. In order to complete the task, you must: 1) Find the appropriate editor to pitch to (look on the publication website/first pages for the masthead); and 2) Tell the editor what you want to write about, why it’s timely, why their readership will care about your voice, and why you are the right person to write it; and 3) make it quick, 150 words. Editors are busy, so get right to the point.
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