The document provides instructions for writing a reckoning essay about David Shields' text on originality and plagiarism. Students are told to: 1) Identify a problem or question about the primary text. 2) Cite and quote from the primary text to illustrate the problem. 3) Find 3 outside sources to help address the problem, indicating how each source will be used. 4) Propose an argument in response to the problem. 5) Write a 4-6 page draft that introduces the problem, analyzes the primary text, and uses the sources to support an argument.

1. RECKONING ESSAY
Rhetorical Development of the Essay
Problem => Project => Argument=> Idea
http://www.thewhitereview.org/features/i-cant-stop-thinking-
through-what-other-people-are-thinking/
When it comes to your project, remember that the
reckoning essay
is an essay about
essay
.
Write a first draft
of reckoning essay by
following a set structure
(see the instructions below). Later, as you edit these drafts, you
will have a chance to be creative and adjust that structure.
Reckoning essay is and how it works: In this
5-7-page essay
, you will make an interpretive argument about a primary text
(David Shields). Along the way, you must demonstrate a
confident and thorough understanding of your selected text,
representing both what the author says and how the author says
it. This kind of work is sometimes called
rhetorical analysis
. The focus and shape of your specific analysis will in part be
determined by the ancillary texts that you select. You should
use
2-4 ancillary sources
using them in different ways as outline in the
BEAM
method.
Here are the steps that I would like you to take
(if you have already completed some of them, cut and paste

2. that work into the document for this assignment):
1.Write two or three sentences in which you spell out
the question, problem, or puzzle that you are motivated to
figure out in reading your primary text
. Try to keep you focus on the text itself and not the author's
own sources or the general topic the author addresses.
-It’s helpful to think through the complexities and
contradictions here (and to consider which are productive and
which are just confusing).
These are MY EXAMPLE: OR Some examples that I think can
be example;
He is talking about originality and he thinks that nothing is
original. And we understand from the text that he thinks it is ok
to plagiarism. But how come he also says that he is not anti-
copyright activis.
How did he think about writing an essay on plagiarizing when
he is in Academia? Isn’t this a fundamental thing?
Isn’t someone plagiarized considered stealing someone elses
ideas and making a profit out of it?
2. Read your chosen
primary text
one more time with that specific problem in mind. Write out an
MLA-style citation for the text. Underneath that, copy down
at least three key terms, two short passages (no more than a
couple of sentences), and one long passage (an entire paragraph
or several lines) that speak to that problem
.
3. Choose
three ancillary(Outside) sources that can help you think through
the problem you are exploring
. Write out a citation for each one.
Identify each one as a Background, Exhibit, Argument, or

3. Method source. And for EACH source copy down at least three
key terms, two short passages (no more than a couple of
sentences), and one long passage (an entire paragraph or several
lines) that might be useful.
See the BEAM method below;
Sources:
http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/the-ecstasy-of-influence/
Joseph, S., & Rickett, C. (2014). David Shields’ way of making:
Creative manoeuvre or HDR nightmare?.
Creative Manoeuvres: Writing, Making, Being, 127.
Find one more source to use.
4. Now read over your notes from the previous steps and
consider all of the evidence in front of you. Give some thought
to the specific argument that you want to make in your
reckoning essay. That argument should be an answer or a
hypothesis that your propose in response to the problem (which
might have taken the form of a question) that you posed above.
Write out this argument in two or three sentences
.
5.
Now write!
Use all of the steps above to help you write a 4
-6-page draft of your reckoning essay
in the following format:
Paragraph 1: Introduce and explain the problem
Paragraph 2: Represent your primary text
Paragraph 3: Use your first ancillary source to consider the
problem and interpret the primary text, according to its function
in the BEAM method.
Paragraph 4: Use your second ancillary source to consider the
problem and interpret the primary text, according to its function
in the BEAM method.
Paragraph 5: Use your third ancillary source to consider the
problem and interpret the primary text, according to its function

4. in the BEAM method.
Paragraph 6: Introduce and explain your argument.
Please include all steps 1-5 in your document.
(My notes:
-He is
not saying that you can’t
use
this or you can’t do this, instead he says that you
can do this you can borrow this and
you can use this
-Shields seems particularly interested in
blurred lines.
-Shields
does not believe
that writers and other artists are
lying
in the incorporation of other people’s work. Instead, he
believes that that incorporation is essential to art, that we find
originality not in inventing new things but in combining old
things in new ways.
-With that final example of Muddy Waters and Alan Lomax in
your mind,
take a look and focus on the last page of the Jonathan Lethem
:
http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/the-ecstasy-of-influence/
. Ifyouread carefully, you will find a lot of ways that what
Lethem is doing further contextualizes and complicates Shield’s
essay.
-Shields’s position is unexpected: it’s a celebration of (and a
deliberately provocative one) of practices that many writers,
teachers, and public thinkers criticize: borrowing others’ work
without attribution.
-One way to approach this, if not necessarily solve it, is to
puzzle through Shield’s argument, and the

5. Colbert Report
appearance can help here too. Is he arguing that we should all
be plagiarists? Well, sort of, but he seems to be more interested
in how we perceive copyright and fair use, and for that matter
how we understand originality. So perhaps this is an article
more about originality than it is about theft…
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ohefue/the-colbert-report-david-
shields
BEAM METHOD
·
Background
: using a source to provide general information to explain the
topic. For example, the use of a Wikipedia page on the Pledge
of Allegiance to explain the relevant court cases and changes
the Pledge has undergone.
·
Exhibit
: using a source as evidence or examples to analyze. For a
literature paper, this would be a poem you are analyzing. For a
history paper, a historical document you are analyzing. For a
sociology paper, it might be the data from a study.
·
Argument
: using a source to engage its argument. For example, you might
use an editorial from the New York Times on the value of
higher education to refute in your own paper.
·
Method
: using a source’s way of analyzing an issue to apply to your
own issue. For example, you might use a study’s methods,

6. definitions, or conclusions on gentrification in Chicago to apply
to your own neighborhood in New York City.