Assignment Paper

For your second assignment, you will imitate David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster,” and narrate a vivid, detailed experience which caused you to re-think your chosen subject, modeling after Wallace’s techniques, the techniques from the Three Imitations assignments, and techniques from other model authors from this unit.

The experience you narrate (in DFW’s case, the Maine Lobster Festival) and the subject you re-consider (in DFW’s case, the ethics of consuming lobster) should be specific and focused, but in the end are entirely up to you. Pick something you know well, have complex feelings about it, and are interested in exploring in depth.

Beyond imitating his rhetoric and style, here are the rules and requirements:

-You must begin by narrating your specific experience like Wallace does, using sensory details and vivid, precise language

– You should then pivot to defining whatever subject your experience has caused you to re-think raising key questions that you will then explore with the reader in detail

-Like Wallace, you should use footnotes

-You should title your essay “Consider the {your specific subject}”

-Like Wallace, you should direct your argument at an audience who is resistant to considering your subject in the way you’re asking them to (in his case, this essay was originally published in Gourmet, a magazine for foodies–not the typical place for a discussion of ethics of food)

-Like Wallace, your goal is to shift your audience’s emotional and intellectual orientation to your specific subject; in his case, he assumes many have either ignored the ethics of eating lobster or simply have never considered it in detail. As you read, consider how his descriptive language and detail contribute to changing the audience’s emotions and challenging them to re-consider his subject