Assignment/Activity Title Nonfiction Book Essay

Rowland
Skill Argumentation, Critical reasoning, Writing
Critical Reasoning

Year Junior

Abby

Portfolio Category

Lang is a class for writing. All of first semester, it taught us how to write in our own voice and how to use rhetoric
to make an argument. Near the end of the semester, we were told to read a nonfiction book and to find an argument within
it that we could defend, qualify, or challenge in a persuasive essay. This sounded interesting to me because when I think of
nonfiction literature; I don't think the author is trying to argue something. Nonfiction to me meant delivering facts. I was
curious to see what arguments I could find within a true story. I chose to read We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We
Will Be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch. It's a book about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and it is a vivid and
sorrowing story. As I was reading, I was looking too hard for arguments and therefore not really taking in the story that
was being told. So I got about halfway through and realized I didn't really know what was going on. I went back a little
bit, put down my post-in notes that I was using to mark the potential arguments I could use for my essay, and I just read.
When I finished, I realized that I knew what argument I wanted to use, because I knew the story well, and I could tell what
some of the author's points were. At one point in the story he had said that genocide is an exercise in community building
because planned mass killings couldn't be carried out without a feeling a fellowship between the killers. This struck me
hard because it doesn't seem logical to link community and genocide together. I decided to look deeper into the claim
Gourevitch made and I ended up arguing that genocide is an act in community building if you look at it close up. It builds
a sense of community in each group, the ones carrying out the genocide and the ones who are subject to its violence,
because it gives them a common trait. In a zoomed out sense, however, it actually tears a larger community apart,
separating them into killers and killed.
Looking further into genocide and forming an argument about it was extra intriguing and thought inducing
because of all the war and mass killing going on in the world right now. The first example of this that came to mind was
ISIS, and it was a very weird realization to me that the violent actions they take probably bring the members of the
terrorist group closer. They have a common goal and common beliefs, and that has formed a tight knit group under which
they function together. That's why I put it in the critical reasoning category. Writing about killing as something that brings
people together and forms communities is not an easy feat because killing feels like the opposite of community. So it took
a lot of brainpower and reasoning to find evidence for my argument and then to actually make it sound convincing on
paper. I had to use the evidence to make myself believe it so that I could make other people believe it. I didn't want it to
sound forced, because then it wouldn't even be worth it to try to argue my point.
This assignment helped me learn a lot about international affairs and what fuels people to kill others. Looking at
orchestrated mass killings in different ways brought up new trains of thought about the Holocaust, the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and lots of other conflicts around the world. I never understood how a human being could take the life of
another person, and I still don't, but I can see the hate and the conflict now that prompts it. I also can see now how
nonfiction writing is still argumentative. It's actually really cool, the way that works, and since I love to write and might
want to make a career out of it, I want to try writing nonfiction. I might try to copy Gourevitch's style at first, since his
writing is beautiful and paints a vivid picture of whatever he's describing.

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Assignment/Activity Title
Sophomore
SkillWriting, Media, Research.
Reasoning, Ethics.

YearFreshman,
PortfolioCritical

Metacognitive ReflectionThe following questions ARE NOT A

SCRIPT!! Use the ideas within the questions to reflect on the
assignment and its significance to you.
Your reflection MUST use Times New Roman font, size 11, single
spacing

How does this assignment reflect your growth in the category in which you are
placing it?

How have you changed as a result of this assignment?

Why is it important to include this piece in your portfolio?

How and where does this fit in with your prior knowledge?

How do you think that others will react to this product?

What process did you use to complete the product?

What did you learn by doing this assignment?

How does the portfolio product illustrate the connection(s) you've made
between yourself and the course material?

In what ways would you do things differently if you could do it over again?

What did you discover about yourself?

How does it relate to your future?

How does it illustrate your strengths and/or weaknesses?

What obstacles and challenges did you have to deal with, and how did this
struggle change you?

How does the portfolio product show that your perspective on the world has
deepened?

How does it relate to your understanding of the world around you?

Which of your accomplishments makes you feel most proud?

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