{"id":10888,"date":"2016-10-05T15:50:44","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T19:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/?page_id=10888"},"modified":"2016-10-05T15:50:44","modified_gmt":"2016-10-05T19:50:44","slug":"instructor-sebastian","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/journal\/past-issues\/issue-8\/sebastian\/instructor-sebastian\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Instructor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dave Sebastian completed my WR 150 course, \u201cThe Rhetoric of Freedom,\u201d in the spring of 2016 when he was a first-year student in the School of Communications. At the time, Dave was also a reporter for Boston University\u2019s <em>Daily Free Press<\/em>, where he evidently became comfortable as writer and curious as a researcher. A hallmark of Dave\u2019s work was his intellectual independence: for both of his research papers in Writing 150, he selected subjects that made sense within the thematic parameters of the course but that also required extensive research and reading beyond our syllabus.<\/p>\n<p>In my comments on Dave\u2019s first draft of the essay, I wrote, \u201cThis is a <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">strong<\/span> and <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">promising<\/span> draft! There is so much to admire here. From the intellectual independence you displayed in locating this worthwhile subject to your careful scholarship in well-chosen primary and secondary sources, this work is impressive.\u201d I did, however, urge Dave to provide greater help to readers unfamiliar with his subject, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek (Mayling Soong.) \u201cYou need,\u201d I wrote, \u201cto explain more about her rise to prominence and her education and life.\u201d Dave acted on this advice\u2014and the result was a final paper that was far more accessible to an educated but general audience. In the introduction to his final portfolio, Dave explained how much he learned from making the essay accessible to unknown readers\u2014and how motivated he was to research his subject. \u201cThrough multiple drafts,\u201d Dave wrote, \u201cI have learned how to introduce Madame Chiang, a complex figure, to unknowledgeable readers by writing a potent problem statement that includes a short biography of Madame Chiang. This skill of setting common ground with readers will be beneficial in my endeavors as a journalist, as I would need to be able to report on complex matters in an understandable language. Most notably, my passion for my essay subject is evident through my research: I spent nights at the library delving into books from the 1940s, analyzing the intricate yet stylistic rhetoric of Madame Chiang, who published numerous articles in the American media.\u201d A product of intellectual curiosity and careful library scholarship, Dave\u2019s essay models what students are capable of achieving when they are both independent intellectually and responsive to feedback on a draft.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2014 THOMAS UNDERWOOD<\/strong><br \/>\n<span>WR 150:\u00a0<span>The Rhetoric of Freedom in America<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dave Sebastian completed my WR 150 course, \u201cThe Rhetoric of Freedom,\u201d in the spring of 2016 when he was a first-year student in the School of Communications. At the time, Dave was also a reporter for Boston University\u2019s Daily Free Press, where he evidently became comfortable as writer and curious as a researcher. A hallmark [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4801,"featured_media":0,"parent":10853,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10888"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4801"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10888"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11764,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10888\/revisions\/11764"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}