Testimonial Essay
Description:
Testimonials are personal stories that highlight the significant reasons why the writer or speaker might support a certain social or political position, or why they might be passionate about a particular subject. You are going to share your story about your relationship with, and interest in, the specific topic you’ve chosen to focus on for your course project; the Marketing Manual. Your essay should narrate one or more anecdotes from your life that illustrate why this topic matters to you.
Your testimonial will describe your relationship with, and stance toward, the topic you choose to focus your Marketing Manual work on for the duration of the course. Why did you choose the topic? What is your personal and/or philosophical connection to it? This essay is essentially a personal narrative, and can be framed around your story. Why and how did you come to care about this topic, environmental studies, and sustainability in general? This sort of reflection is important to recognizing your own stance(s) toward various topics and understanding your positionality, that is, your socio-political identities, and how those identities condition your ethical stances.
Approach:
Your Testimonial Essay must do the following:
Help you understand and articulate your own ethical and emotional connection – your motivation, in other works – to the particular issue,
Include the stance you will be advocating for regarding that issue, and rhetorical strategies you will be curating regarding the issue to be included in your Marketing Manual.
Provide anecdotal material (testimony) that others can use to strategize ways to connect with potentially receptive audiences.
Depending on how your life has gone so far, you may have several interesting stories to tell. Focus on one or two that you think readers can really connect with. On the other hand, you might not have any story that you think is particularly dramatic or compelling. You can still make this work by exploring your own interest in the subject. Why did you enroll at Unity, for example. What matters is that you spend time thinking strategically about how you decide what to say, how you structure or arrange your story, and how you describe it. You will want to employ vivid descriptions and attract readers to your position on an emotional, gut level.
