328.1 Elements of Style Remake (see The SSEOS: An Example)
"Good prose does not come from a one-time inoculation" (14). - Richard Lanham, Style: An Anti-textbook
The Assignment
Project One invites you to remake Strunk and White's well-known The
Elements of Style by recontextualizing
selected composing principles in relation to a pop culture "text" of
your choice. Doing this well will require you to understand selected
principles from The Elements of Style and to apply those
principles to other samples of writing. The project is inspired in part
by Derek Pell's Marquis de Sade's Elements of Style, a small
book that parodies Strunk and White by using de Sade's risqué writing
to ridicule, comment upon, and in cases radically transform Strunk and
White's handbook. To prepare for this assignment, we will read and
discuss The
Elements of Style, look at selections from Pell's work, and try
it out with a few examples of our own in class.
In
effect, we are pursuing a richer sense of Strunk and White's
maxims to contemplate just how adequate they are for a greatly expanded
sampling of contemporary language contexts, including those increasingly
circulating online. By creating an encounter between Strunk and White
and some pop culture "text" of
your choosing, you will establish a framework for the self-conscious
examination of style. The point of fusion where Strunk and White and
your pop culture text meet ought to be prime for parody, for play, and
for explorations of style that restate or otherwise extend and implicitly critique principles
established in The
Elements of Style. This is another way of saying that you are being
urged to produce a project that productively counters the style-in-a-vacuum
Richard Lanham describes when he calls for writers to produce prose illustrative of the ways
style can be "a pleasure, a grace, a joy, a delight" (28).
As you read The Elements of Style, you will notice that E.B. White describes William Strunk, Jr. in a variety of ways—as friendly and funny, as positive, as whimsical, as inflexible and choosy. We can almost imagine Strunk as someone who would be flattered by Pell's careful remake of the "little book." Keep this in mind as you proceed: you are welcome to involve as much or as little parody as you like. Yet, perhaps what works best about Pell's parody is its sharp contrast with Strunk and White's style.
Your remake should follow the organizational lead of The Elements of Style. That is, you must adapt something from each of the five sections of the book, having sections that correspond to 1. Elementary Rules of Usage, II. Elementary Principles of Composition, III. A Few Matters of Form, IV. Words and Expressions Commonly Misused, and V. An Approach to Style. Many of your examples will come directly from your pop culture "text." But you are also allowed to modify them as needed. In other words, you might need to retro-fit the examples to align with some section from Strunk and White. You will also notice that Pell relies heavily on images. You are welcome to incorporate images, but you are under no obligation to do so. If you do so, please make choices with a sensitivity to the effectiveness and relevance of the images to your textual examples.
Assignment Details
The project should be a minimum of 1200 words. Typeface, line spacing,
and the formatting of subheadings should be deliberate, but you have
some flexibility in adapting these features of the document to fit
with your aims. A full draft of the project is due on Monday, February 1. Bring a paper copy to class on the 1st for peer
response. The completed project is due on Wednesday, February 3. Submit your work no later than the start of class
on Feb. 3 by uploading it to the Dropbox available in EMU Online. Include
an appropriate title for your project (see below).
Introduction
Your remake will begin with a scene-establishing introduction. That is, you will write an introductory section that establishes a context for the remake. You can setup the remake by establishing a situation as absurd or as realistic as you wish. In either case, the writing should be carefully done and it should function as a segue into the rules and examples further along in the project.
Explanatory Asides and Commentary
Your rule and examples will, in some cases, match up nicely with Strunk and White's and at other times, they will break from convention and, often, parody Strunk and White. You will get a better feel for this as you read The Elements of Style. As you proceed, remember that each principle and example is likely going to require some explanatory note, something like a gloss or footnote that discusses what the principle and example help us understand about style as it is situated in time, place, genre, and social context.
Title
Develop a catchy title that explicitly establishes the tie between your
pop culture text and The Elements of Style. Notice that the
title page of Pell's book (above right) positions Pell as a translator,
and includes other parodic asides.
Evaluation Criteria
Project 1 will be evaluated according to the following five criteria:
1. Reflects a command of selected principles from EOS, as established
by the application of identifiable maxims from Strunk and White to selections
from some pop culture "text" (audience
and purpose; pop culture text suited to this application)
2. Development (the project is complete, fully developed; all aspects, including required length and a catchy title, are available)
3. Illustrative examples (concrete examples, vivid language; examples accompany convincing explanations)
4. Visual effectiveness (look and design of page; margins, typeface, layout, and image resolution, if applicable)
5. Accuracy (concerning mistakes or
errors)
Each criterion listed above will be evaluated on the following scale:
<NA----------NI----------AC----------EX>
EX: Exceptional. The writer has applied the criterion with distinction.
AC: Acceptable/meets expectations. The writer has applied the criterion
to a satisfactory degree.
NI: Needs improvement. The writer has minimally applied the criterion
in the project.
NA: Not applied. The writer has not applied the criterion in the project.
Contact Information
Derek N. Mueller, PhDOffice: 612M Pray-Harrold
Winter 2010 office hours: MW, 10-11 a.m., Tu., 9-Noon, and by appointment
Phone: (315) 708-3940 (cell)
derek.mueller@emich.edu
http://derekmueller.net/rc/
