A poll, cookie pictures, and your letter assignment

Please take this poll to decide what we'll focus on for our Post-1984 discussions.

For those of you who didn't get to see all four of Irina's 1984 cookie designs yesterday, here's a picture:

Today we have time to work on our fourth quarter projects, including the Letters Regarding Our Level of Stress. For those writing letters, here are the details of your assignment:

• Your letter should be in the neighborhood of two single-spaced pages, more than one but less than three pages.
• It should be well developed, with focused paragraphs and a clear evolution of ideas, arguments, and illustrations. 
• It should be carefully edited. While the tone can be somewhat casual, this is a serious piece of rhetoric written more in the form of a formal letter than a dashed-off rant or a wordy email. It should include the full date in the upper right hand corner, and should have a salutation (such as “dear”) and a leave-taking (such as “sincerely”), plus your “signature” (whatever anonymous way you choose to describe yourself).
• It should include specific examples, with some concrete details. 
• Its critique and/or concern-raising should not name names. Use your prose skills to illustrate situations vividly rather than calling out individual people. (In situations where you’re using friends’ or classmates’ experiences as examples, be sure to get their permission if you’re talking about their experience in a way that could be recognizable to anyone reading.)
• Consider examples from your peers as well as from your own experience, and think about how stress affects your social circles and friendships as well as how it affects you individually.
• Keep a balanced perspective and illustrate in one way or another that you understand the complexity of the situations and dynamics you’re talking about.
• I highly recommend taking your letters to the Writing Center tomorrow or the Mobile Writing Center some time in the next week.

The letters are due to me in hard copy on Tuesday, April 30. Do not include your name on the letter; I'll have post-it notes handy for you to attach your names (along with your anonymous “signature,” in case the post-it falls off).