How are you? Here is our mid-term writing assignment – writing about some particular materials, and devices or inventions that are made from those materials.
Before we begin, here are the board notes for our class on 10/11:
Now let's look at the mid-term writing assignment!
Look at the picture at the top of this post. It is of a carbon filament, over a piece of human hair. As you can see it is very thin, but strong and useful. This has become one of the most useful materials of our time, used in so many things from carpets to aircraft.
Guidelines
You can choose any materials, and any innovative or useful device or invention from the present or the past made from those materials. It can involve inventions, devices, or technological innovations developed in Japan, or other countries, or invented or developed elsewhere and brought here.
For the part of your writing on inventions, devices, or other technological points, you can write about things that have a mix of different materials – but point out one (1) material that might be the most distinguishing feature, or perhaps was what made the invention or device unique or most useful.
When you write, you can think of these points:
- What the materials are
- Very important - what chemical properties (such as types of metals) they are made of
- The characteristics (材質) of the materials
- When they were first developed
- What immediate applications (使用) for things the materials have
-
Very important - what you believe to be the most innovative or useful thing or technological innovation made from these materials when writing about the invention or device you chose
- Which individual material may be the most distinguishing or unique in the invention or device
- What impact you believe the material has had in Japan or worldwide (optional point - including what personal impact it has had on you)
Special note: If the material or invention is no longer used – what impact did the material or invention have in its time? Was it replaced by improved material, or a better invention? What made it go out of use (for example, was it made outdated by innovations in material technology, or an improved inventions)?
How much to write
I would like you to write a composition as long as you can, perhaps about 3-4 paragraphs' worth of writing, but more if possible.
If you believe you can write more than that, go for it! I will recognize and reward writing that you put effort into for length.
Your final draft has to be typed up, but your first draft (下書き) can be written by hand. I will show you a format in class next week (10/18) about how to write your name, class, assignment, date, plus title.
Deadline (締め切り)
November 8th (11/8), so you have almost three (3) weeks to do this.
I want you to bring in an idea for an invention and its materials next week (10/18). I will give some more details, and where I can, review your ideas. From there you can begin write a first draft (下書き), changing things about your ideas as you need to, then write to the finish and turn in your work on 11/8.
Good luck with this! I will post more on this assignment with support about outlining and writing. I look forward to reading your great writing on inventions and materials!
Images: Top - by No machine-readable author provided. Saperaud~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). - No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=350295/Board notes - personal photograph. All rights reserved.
