To do this assignment choose a specific focus. If might be helpful to think about these
questions:
a) Ask yourself why it is or is not useful to understand the history of media and
design.
b) Is it useful to engage media history and theory for thinking about architecture?
The Assignment:
You are asked to write either:
1. An Op–Ed paragraph (as in an opinion editorial as published in a newspaper) that
reflects on media and architecture. You can choose a contemporary issue or
controversy in architecture or education to situate your opinion piece. Your image
examples from assignment #3 will provide the evidence for your position, whether
pro or con.
OR
2. A letter to the editor that reflects on a specific aspect of media and architecture as
discussed in ARC 353. Similarly to an Op–Ed, the letter should states a position to a
public audience and make an argument pro or con.
Helpful Hints and useful for the December 3rd tutorial:
A. Writing for the public is a specific type of writing. You are writing for the public, a
general audience and not for a scholarly, academic or design focused or
architectural audience. Following the University of Toronto’s University College
Writing advisor, “public writing aims to be accessible, even when it engages the
past.”1
1 Jerry Plotnick, University College Writing Centre, https:advice.writing.ca accessed March 1st, 2021. You will find this document in the assignments folder on the course Quercus site.
B. Think as specifically as possible about who your readers are. Where are you
situated when writing: in Toronto or another part of Canada, in New Zealand, or in
China, in a library, or shared dorm room, for example?
Which newspaper or magazine or student publication or on–line forum are writing to? In other words, who is the reading audience and how familiar will they be with the contents you want to discuss?
Consider what the audience may need to know, or might want to know about your topic to better understand the issue or issues at stake.
C. Following the advice from University College Writing Centre, “provide the context
and be concrete” in giving examples or situating “your piece in terms of the real–
world situation.”
Is the real–world situation a cautionary to celebratory tale on media or surveillance or design, or a new building on campus or on the necessity of decolonizing the curriculum and unlearning assumptions within architectural education?
D. Following the advice from the University College Writing Centre, it is often useful to begin with an anecdote. “While personal experience is generally discouraged as
source material in academic essays, it can figure much more prominently in public
writing.”
E. “If you’re writing an opinion piece, one good habit in essay writing that can carry
over nicely to public writing is to engage with opposing points of view. Addressing
the opposition can help you do justice to the complexity of an issue. The ability to
convey complex ideas and avoid the specialized language of the academy is a mark of
the finest public writing.”2
F. You are asked to produce a piece of public writing. This is not a report. It should be
critical which means that you have engaged in an analysis and assessed the merits
and faults, the pros and cons of architecture and media, or architecture as a medium.
