Writing Project 3: The Profile

Overview and Background. For this major writing project, you will write a profile of an accessible community member or
public figure. Profiles are written portraits-of people, places, events, or other things. We find profiles of celebrities, travel
destinations, and offbeat festivals in magazines and newspapers, on radio and TV. A profile presents a subject in an way
that conveys its significance, showing us something or someone that we may not have known existed or that we see
everyday but don't know much about. Students typically visit their subject one or more times, taking careful notes on
what they see, hear, and experience, and then shape those notes and their memories into a detailed, focused account.

Choosing a Subject. For this assignment, you should profile a person who strikes you as representative, in some ways, of
a larger group or community. In order find a unique subject and approach to this assignment, you might begin by
grappling with a pertinent question:

● What community or groups are you interested in engaging?

● Who do you know? What groups might they help you access?
● Who in the area has an interesting occupation or hobby?
● Who are the notable or distinguished members of a community or group?
● What is your subject’s practices, behaviors, and characteristics?
● How do those practices, behaviors, and characteristics represent your subject’s values and interests?

Make sure your subject arouses your curiosity and that you are not too familiar with the person. Knowing your subject
too well can blind you to interesting details.

Identity. People are complex and rarely have a single, stand-alone identity. Instead, people are the results of many
interacting, overlapping, co-existing, and conflicting identities and experiences. A person, group of people, or social
problem is the result of these intersections. A person may identity with any combination of race, class, gender identity,
sexual orientation, religion, family status, and other markers. These markers (e.g. “Female” and “Black”; “Gay” and
“Father”) do not exist independently of each other. Keep this intersectionality in mind when interacting with your
subject in order to avoid stereotyping and reductive conversation.

Genre. Relying heavily on narrative, description, and primary research, the assignment asks you to identify the ways in
which your subject connects to larger community values and identities. To write a successful profile, you will need (1) an
interesting subject, (2) enough information to let readers know something about the subject’s larger context, (3) an
interesting angle or aspect to focus on, (4) firsthand experience with the person, and (5) engaging detail that creates a
dominant impression of the subject.

Requirements.
● An APA format essay of at least 1000 words
● Two-three (2-3) relevant images
● Identification of common assumptions
● Identification of areas of controversy or prominent issues confronting your subject.
● Re-thinking those common assumptions and controversies

Project Submission
● Rough Draft: Your rough draft will be submitted for peer review and to your ePortfolio.
● Revised Draft: Your revised draft will be submitted for assessment by way of a submit link on Blackboard.

Tips
● Get started early, setting a writing/research schedule and sticking to it.
● Visit the Writing Center and attending your instructor office hours.
● Explore these chapters in the Norton Field Guide: 46 (finding sources), 5–9 (rhetorical situations), 27
(generating ideas and text), 33 (beginning and ending), 34 (guiding your reader), 41 (dialogue), 43 (narrating),
28–31 (drafting, assessing your own writing, getting response and revising, editing and proofreading)