Austin Slawter

English 202D
Final Project

Company Profile:​ Franksville University Athletic Department has over 75 members on the
staff willing to teach and help students strive for their best. Franksville University is a
Division II College competing against teams all over the country but mostly in the
Northeastern Region. It is not only a great University to play your respected sport but also an
amazing campus to get your degree from, as it offers more than 175 majors.

1​. ​Scholarship Offer​ - Writer - Athletic Director/Men’s Basketball head coach

Audience - Student Athlete receiving the scholarship
Exigence - Because the student athlete is good at a sport
Purpose/Goal - To get the Athlete to play that sport at the University
Context - This Student Athlete is a senior in High School, who the coach
has been watching play basketball and really likes how he plays so decides to offer
him a scholarship.

Dear Richard Ott,

We are proud to announce and congratulate you that our scholarship committee and I
(Tim Scott, Men’s Basketball Head Coach), at Franksville University, are offering you a
full scholarship to continue your academic and basketball career here. It will be a
scholarship that will pay for your tuition, room and board, and a food plan.

I believe Franksville will be a perfect fit for you as we are coming off of 23-5 winning
record last year with a lot of key players returning. Although we have players returning
we lost our starting point guard as he is graduating this year. This is why I think as the
6’1 point guard that you are with amazing ball skills, incredible basketball IQ, and great
leadership; that you will come in as a freshman and make a big impact right away.
Your attitude on and off the court is exactly what we’re missing to take us to an elite
level.

We would like you to come visit the campus so we can show you all the awesome
features and opportunities we have to offer here.We are looking forward to hearing
back from you and welcoming you into the Huskie Community! BELONG, BELIEVE,
BECOME!

Thank you,

Coach Tim Scott

 coachTScott@gmail.com
Men’s Basketball Head Coach at Franksville University
215-637-9872

“Metacognitive Moves” Reflection

1. I started by congratulating the student athlete for the scholarship that we’re
offering him so that he wouldn’t be confused and he would know exactly what
the email is about. I then stated who I was and who I represent to give him
clarification. I used a message from our readings in the “welcome” section and
decided to write this email as a welcome/congratulation letter to make the
athlete feel at home when he reads this email. I looked back at what me and
Deb talked about in the interview and I remember her telling me that when she
talks/writes to students about scholarships that she really wants the athlete to
feel like they mean something and that they’re special. Before really talking
about him as an athlete and how he would fit into our organization, I told him
exactly what the scholarship was. Then I got into the sweet gushy stuff to make
him feel like this just wasn’t a boring scholarship we send out to any good
athlete. I talked about the good year we had but then told him exactly what
every athlete likes to hear. When I got offered a scholarship the thing that
popped out to me the most, was when the coach mentioned that I would have a
great chance to play a lot of minutes my freshman year. No athlete wants to
come to school were they’ll be sitting the bench, and that’s exactly why in this
email I told him about our point guard graduating this year. With more sweet
gushy stuff I talked about his ability and all his good traits on and off the court
to show that we watched him play a lot and really like the way he plays. I then
referred to our assigned were in basically every chapter it says to end on a
good note which I did. I also closed it with one of your tips you use for a CL; I
left a “next steps” message. One last thing I used from our assigned readings
was to avoid any negative messages.

2. R
​ ejected the Offer Letter​ - Writer - Student Athlete, Senior at Archbishop Ryan
Audience - Coach or Athletic Director at a University
Exigence - Doesn’t think the school is a good fit for him/her
Goal - to keep the door open for any future partnerships
Context - The kid writing this email back to the basketball coach
is also a very good lacrosse player as well.
Dear Coach Scott,

I am honored to receive this amazing offer from you and everyone at Franksville
University. With everything that this scholarship offers it is going to be difficult to
decline it.

Although this is an amazing offer, me and my family have talked it over and I have
decided that I’m going to have to decline this scholarship. I’m going to be continuing
my college career by playing Lacrosse, simply because I love playing lacrosse more
than basketball.

With that being said, if I don’t get as good as offer as this one for lacrosse, then I will
definitely reconsider my decision and could possibly change my mind back to playing
basketball. I greatly appreciate this offer and I will let you know when I make a final
decision and if I am going to reconsider playing basketball.

Thank you

Richard Ott
ROtt22@gmail.com
215-219-9334

“Metacognitive Moves” Reflection

1. With this email I decided to use the “Indirect Approach” in our assigned
readings to help me with my moves. Me and Melissa made a Kahoot for the
class to play on how to “decline an offer” and one of the questions was “how
should you start off your declining email using the Indirect Approach” and the
answer is with a buffer, and that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t want to use the
Direct Approach because right away I knew by the end of the email I wanted to
keep the door open so I didn’t want to be negative right away. Although I
started with some good news about how I was honored and appreciate the
offer; I got into the bad news. When I decided to decline my scholarship offer, it
was hard for me to do because I wasn’t exactly sure if i would get an offer in
lacrosse or not but wanted to keep my options opened. In this email I told him
that I would have to decline the offer because I love playing lacrosse more and
that is what my family and I thought was best for me. Then once again I
referred to our assigned readings by ending it on a good note and leaving the
door open. This way if anything happened during the lacrosse season or I
simply just didn’t get a better offer that I would love to reconsider my decision.
So like that sandwich that you always talked about during class; I started with
some good news/buffer, in the middle was the bad new, and the bottom was
ending with some more good news.
 3. N​ ew Hire Email​ - Writer - Athletic Director
Audience - Person being hired
Exigence - vacancy in the coaching position
Purpose - To get this person to be the head coach
Context - The AD already had interviews with people interested
in the open position as the Head Coach, because the old coach was fired due to 4 bad
seasons in a row.

Dear Justin Egan,

Congratulations! After our interview with you for the new head coaching job for the
Men’s Basketball team at Franksville University, the Athletic Department and I are
proud to announce that you have received the job and we believe you are a perfect fit
for our organization. With much thought and consideration, there is no question that
we would love for you to lead our team as the head coach.

We realized that with your great leadership and intensity to help these kids learn the
game of basketball, and many more traits that you were the coach that could turn this
program around to a winning season. Not only do we think you could do that within the
upcoming years, we also believe with how young you are, that you could also be our
franchise coach for many more years ahead of that. We will give you all the support
and help you need to help this organization.

We are looking forward to hearing back from you and we will also be sending out a
mass email and newsletter to announce your new position. BELONG, BELIEVE,
BECOME!

Thank you,

Rachel Buck
RBuck22@gmail.com
Athletic Director at Franksville University
215-895-3347

“Metacognitive Moves” Reflection

3. For this email I decided to use once again the welcome/congratulations approach. I started
right off the bat by saying Congratulations because like any other accepted job application,
they don’t want you to be confused when reading the first couple sentences. One thing that
people love when getting a job as a coach or in general is that whoever is hiring them
believes and has trust in them. This is why I stated that there was no question with who we
would hire. I then gave, what I mentioned in my first rhetorical situation, some sweet gushy
stuff to show what we liked from Mr. Egan. I then stated that i didn’t want this to be a 3-5 year
deal and that I wanted to see him as the head coach of the Basketball team for many more
years to come. Doing this I wanted him to know that we weren’t just hiring him to just fill the
spot as of right now, no I wanted him to know that we really liked what he had to offer and
hope he would be with us for a long term deal. I ended with some “next steps” by telling him
that we are going to make an announcement to the University and to the public about the new
hire.

4. T
​ hank You Letter​ - Writer - Coach that was hired
Audience - Athletic Director and School Administrations
Exigence - To show great appreciation
Goal - To stay on good terms with whoever hired them

Dear Ms. Rachel Buck,

I am honored and excited to have received this amazing job and can’t thank you
enough for giving me this opportunity. I will put 120% effort into this program each and
everyday to get these kids better and to win games.

I can not wait to start and to also bring all the things that I mentioned in the interview to
the table. I will do my best to not only make these kids better basketball players but
also help them grow into young men. I am very excited to get started and can’t wait to
get on campus and meet everyone.

I can not reiterate myself enough about how serious I will take this job, although I want
the kids to get comfortable with me and feel like a family, there are things that I just will
not tolerate as a coach. I will have a meeting with the team and would love for you to
be there, so you can hear what my rules are and what I expect from the players.

Thank you again,

Justin Egan
JEgan55@gmail.com
Bachelor’s Degree in Sports Management
215-034-2229

“Metacognitive Moves” Reflection

 4. Although I didn’t make a lot of moves in this email it was still a very strong and
heartfelt email. I started by saying how honored I was to receive the job and thanked her for
the great opportunity. I then repeated what I told her during our interview, to reiterate that I will
give all my effort into turning this organization around. I keep mentioning how much effort I will
put into this, to show her reassurance that she didn’t make the wrong choice of hiring me. I
ended by saying again how excited I was about this and was looking forward to meeting
everyone else on board at Franksville University. Although I repeatedly stated how excited I
was for this opportunity I still ended with how serious I will take this to turn things around.

5.​ ​Public Statement or Public Email​ (​Good​) - Writer - Athletic Director

Audience - Fans/Students/Parents/Neighborhood
Exigence - An athlete won a big award / a team won a championship
Purpose - to get the audience to recognize the success a person or team is
having.

Dear Franksville Supporters and Fans,

It is with great honor to announce that our Men’s Basketball team has won the conference
Championship over St. Peters College. Our team was lead by second year head coach Justin
Egan (NEACC Coach of the Year) and also by star point guard Rus Michaels (NEACC Most
Valuable Player). Michaels had 27 points and 6 assists, and was helped by Kyle Matthews
who tacked on 15 points and 10 rebounds. This win was the first Men’s Basketball
Championship in over 10 years. The team is on a 4 hour bus ride back from Michigan where
the game was held, but we would like to come together as a University and as a community
tomorrow to welcome home the players and coaches and to also celebrate this amazing
victory. The celebration will start at 2pm in the Athletic Building, we are excited to see all of
you and greet our team back home.

Thank you

Rachel Buck
RBuck22@gmail.com
Athletic Director at Franksville University
215-895-3347

“Metacognitive Moves” Reflection

 5. I decided to write this announcement to let the University and community of
Franksville recognize the great accomplishment of our Men’s Basketball team. Once again I
used a personal experience of when my High School basketball team made it the final four, so
I went and referred to that article. I gave everyone a description of who lead our team to this
victory by telling them the coaches name and the high scorers of the game. I did this to show
everyone who hasn’t followed the team all year who the main players and coach were. I also
wanted to let everyone see that this was such a big win for Franksville as the last
Championship they won was over 10 years ago. Lastly I wanted to give the team the support
and celebration they deserve by having a celebration party the next day where not only
students of the University could attend but also anyone in the public that still follows our Men’s
team. There wasn’t much in our assigned readings or anything I gathered in the interview with
Deb to help me with this situation so I had to use my personal experiences to show my moves
with this one.

6. (​Bad​) - Writer - Athlete Director

Audience - Fans/Student Athletes/Coach and their team
Exigence - Something happened during a game or practice
Purpose - to suspend the player or ban the fan from games
Context - Bad incident happened at a game with one of our fans that we have
to address to the public.

Dear Franksville Supporters and Fans,

First off I want to thank all of you for all the support and effort you put into making this
organization and in this case the Men’s Basketball team better, we greatly appreciate it. With
that being said there was an incident that happened over the weekend at the game that I as
the Athletic Director has to approach. For anyone that doesn’t know what happened I will
inform you; a fight/argument broke out during the game between a player on our team and a
player on the opposing team and during this altercation the mother of our player ran on the
court to protect her child and attack the opposing team’s player. I have talked to our player
and his mother already and have decided to suspend the player for 2 games and also ban the
mother from anymore games this year. I am writing this letter to announce to everyone that
what happened on the court will be solved by the refs and the league officials, therefore we
will not tolerate any fans/family/friends running on the court at any means necessary. This is
just not acceptable and could give our team and University a bad name. I hope this will never
happen again and we continue this year with no more altercations or fights.

Thank you
Rachel Buck
RBuck22@gmail.com
Athletic Director at Franksville University
215-895-3347

“Metacognitive Moves” Reflection

6. Again there wasn’t much in our assigned readings or anything I gathered in the
interview with Deb to help me so I had to use my personal experiences to show my moves
with this one. I wrote this letter to the public and all the fans of any of our Athletic teams to let
them know exactly what our policy and rules are. I started by thanking them because it wasn’t
all of them so they shouldn’t feel attacked at all but I needed to address this situation. I gave
my audience a clear description of what happened at the game this way they wouldn’t be
confused when I addressed our policy and rules. I then took leadership by telling them that I
suspended and banned each of the individuals involved because what happened was not
acceptable and I wanted the audience to know that we as the University will not tolerate any
behavior like that. I did not want to end on a sweet and sorry note because I really wanted the
audience to understand how serious and how upset/angry I was about the whole situation, not
leaving it on a sweet note shows that I will not joke around or take anything lightly in this
matter. When this actually happened in real life I remember vaguely how mad Deb actually
was and kept repeating herself how that this was not acceptable. So I wanted to make this as
real as possible and say pretty much everything Deb said to us after it happened.
Z. De Piero Student:
________________________
202D Business Writing, F’18

Rubric for 202D Final Project

Rubric for R
​ hetorical Situations

Did Not Meet Met Exceeded

Expectations Expectations Expectations

Company Profile

Have you you provided relevant background information to help bring

your organization to life? What’s the name of this
organization/company? What’s their field, industry, or “line of work”?
Where are they located? Who is their clientele?

Exigence

What prompted the writer’s need to communicate? What’s the urgency

behind the need to enact this particular genre? Why this, why now?

Writer

Who is the writer? What’s their name, what organization/company are

they affiliated with, and what’s their role/position?

Audience (Primary and Peripheral)

Who is the intended/primary audience for this genre? What’s their

name, what organization/company are they affiliated with, and what’s
their position/role?

Additionally, what other peripheral/secondary audiences might play a

role in how we can understand this genre? Might other people be
interested in the message that’s being communicated? Could the writer
have additional people in mind beyond the specific person(s) that they’ve
contacted?

Purpose

What’s the writer’s goal? Is it realistic? Have they identified a concrete,

actionable outcome that they’re hoping to achieve?

Context / Background Info

What additional information is necessary to make the most sense of this

rhetorical situation? Do the writer and their audience have a “history”
of sorts? Is there an upcoming deadline? Has a company’s policy or
personnel recently gone through changes? Is there a current “hot topic”
that’s circulating throughout the news cycle that makes this
communication more urgent?

Notes and Score​ (X/7.5)

Rubric for T
​ extual Genres

Did Not Meet Met Exceeded

Expectations Expectations Expectations

Genre Identification

Did you (accurately) name/identify each unique genre that you

enacted?

Alignment with the Rhetorical Situation

Does the genre that you created/enacted accurately reflect the

rhetorical situation (for each genre) that you laid out?

Genre-Specific Conventions

To what extent did each textual genre include its most important
conventions? Remember: when we think of “conventions,” we think
of the unique characteristics, features, patterns, or ingredients of a
particular genre. (e.g. a sspecific subject or an e-signature line for an
email)

Rhetorical Strategies

Has the writer used various rhetorical strategies to persuade their

reader/audience in the most effective way possible? From jargon
(technical terminology), to particular details (e.g. the specific amount
of $ due for a claim; timelines for a call to action), to communication
with internal vs. external audiences, have you (the student) brought
each genre “to life” in realistic ways with your language-based
decisions?

Organization/Structure

Is the writer’s communication organized/structured in a clear and

logical manner? Does the organizational strategy best suppor the
writer’s goals of each particular genre?

Mechanics + Punctuation

Have you demonstrated a control of mechanics and punctuation?

Are you using complete sentences​ ​(unless intentionally avoiding them
for stylistic reasons)?

Notes and Score​ (X/15)

Rubric for “​ Metacognitive Moves” Reflection

Did Not Meet Met Exceeded

Expectations Expectations Expectations

Focus on “Moves”

What writerly decisions did you make in this project? Did you identify
numerous, conseequential “moves” that you made for this project? Did
you articulate what you did and why you did it? (Or didn’t do it?) do
that

Examples of “Moves”

Is your analysis of your moves connected to your language? Have you

quoted yourself to provide concrete examples?

Learning and Insights

The whole point of engaging in a metcaognitive reflection (like this) is to

better understand what you’re learning and to communicate that with
others. What insights are you gaining about written communication?
About language? About rhetorical situations? About genre? Ahout
organizational structures?

Interview

Think back to your interview. How/when/where/why did you draw

from insights that came out of your interview? Indicate how your
interview informed this 202d project.

Connection to Assigned Readings

Per the syllabus, did you make ​specific​ connections to our assigned
course readings? What ideas, concepts, or strategies informed your
project? ​ I’d like to see you ​paraphrase and “quote” at least 5
different times from at least 3 different readings/chapters.!

Notes and Score​ (X/15)

25.5 / 35 – 3 (super late) = 22.5 / 35

Slawter,
That grade, above, is misleading. You put forth some super-strong work, and I’m proud of you.
That said, I need you take this 1 or 2 steps further. I suggest focusing on these 3 areas:
* 1. Your interview: how/when/where are you moving forward knowledge that you gained from
Deb?
* 2. Assigned course readings. C’mon, cuz.
* 3. Tie your “moves” to your language. Cite/quote yourself.
* 4. Some of your punctuation was a bit unwieldy. I want you to Google Check out the UNC
Writing Center’s “Handouts” section. No joke: that site has helped me BIG time with some of
my own questions about how I can improve as a writer. It’s a gold mine.
I’m expecting you to revise this and submit a through-the-roof final version for a solid “A.”