Paper #4 Assignment

Paper #4: Reviewing Your Life!

For this assignment, you’re still going to respond to a conversation in society, but in a very different fashion. The only research you need to do is find a review of a movie or TV show you like: it can be a bad review or a good review. Read it carefully and note what aspects of the show (the acting, the story, the plot, the dialogue, etc.) the reviewer applauds or criticizes. What makes the film/show successful or a flop according to the reviewer?

THEN, I want you to review something in the real world according to the exact same guidelines. In other words, I want you to be this reviewer, and to review something that is not a movie or show as if it is. This could be anything in the course of your day-to-day existence. You will become a reviewer of your own life!

Some things you could review are:

* A college class

* A job

* A restaurant (but don’t just review the food—review the entire experience)

* A date

* A game (ECU or otherwise)

* A TV or web commercial

The trick here is to write satire: that is, to be ironic (and treating a job like a movie is ironic), and use humor and over-the-top language to help us see what is satirical about this place or event. For example, you might have a class that is really, really boring; maybe the professor only reads off Powerpoint slides all day, every day. So how would the writer of your film review rate your own class? Based on what he/she said about the film, how many stars would he/she give your class? What would he/she like? Dislike? How could he/she discuss your class in terms of the movie? Use the review to satirize what works and doesn’t work about your class, to help us ‘see’ how you feel about it. Irony often helps us see what we would otherwise miss, just as film reviews help us understand why a movie works or doesn’t work.

REQUIREMENTS

• Write this as an actual review of a movie. Use the same author as your film review and try to talk about your event in the same way. Mirror the actual language of the review if possible.
• Turn in the review with your paper: I want to see how closely you modeled your satire on the real review.
• Have fun, be silly, but also make a point: show why the date didn’t work out; show why we lost the game; show why a college class is surprisingly interesting despite the dull subject matter, etc.
• Due the last day of class, Thursday, December 1st by 5pm