Ex 1-1: Close Reading
Write a close reading that focuses on your personal likes and dislikes. (Consult Roberts, Chapter 2.)
Length: 2 pages (about 500 words.)
Chose one or two assigned works, and write an informal essay that demonstrates your ability to use direct quotations from the assigned literary works in order to defend a claim that you want to make.
Ex 1-2: Pro/Con
Use your close reading skills to examine more than one side of a complex argument about one or more of the literary works we have studied. (Choose a different work than the one you discussed for Ex 1-1.)
Length: 3 pages minimum (about 700 words).
Criteria:
The paper should avoid plot summary
- X "This is a story about..."
- X "After the protagonist discovers the truth, he gets a real shock: his wife is just as dishonest as he was!").
The same goes for character description. Assume your reader knows the story well, and has a copy within reach.
The paper should avoid gratuitous personal responses
- X "This exciting passage makes me think of the time I was climbing a mountain with my friend Sally, who..."
- X "When I first read this passage, I thought..."
- X "People should be judged by what they can do, not by who their parents are."
The paper should make a claim about the literary text, not about life or faith or politics or women or anything else in general. (Literature is the study of a particular artist's representation of reality, not the study of reality itself.)
Your thesis should be a claim about the specific work in particular
The harsh faith of the Puritan fathers perpetuated misery, forcing imperfect people to choose between keeping up the external appearances of moral perfection, or risk being rejected by the society they needed in order to survive.
The above thesis is unacceptable because it makes a claim about the Puritan faith, and refers to the nature of moral perfection and the social needs of the human individual for support. That way lies chaos.
Sometimes religious authorities are corrupt. One example of such a corrupt society can be found in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, where [plot summary begins here].
A different kind of problem. This one makes a claim about religious societies, and uses The Scarlet Letter as a handy example. If you swapped out this text for a different text that showed a corrupt religious society, or a news article about corruption in religion, the points the author wants to make will pretty much be the same.
Consider instead the following:
While Hawthorne is deeply critical of the Puritan society he represents in The Scarlet Letter, the story does not advocate the complete rejection of moral authority. Rather, it illustrates, through Dimmesdale's demise, the destructive power of moral irresponsibility, and through Hester's eventual triumph, the healing power of accepting responsibility for one's own weakness.
The revision makes a claim about Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and refers to specific incidents from the novel for support.
Background
In your high school English class, if you read a short story about tension between a mother and daughter, your teacher probably rewarded you for writing an essay in which you described parallels between the story and your own life. Your teacher wanted evidence that you had read and understood the story, and so your teacher rewarded you for summarizing the plot, for describing how you felt while reading it, and for explaining what you might have done if you were in a similar situation.
In a college literature class, your instructor expects that you already know how to summarize a work of literature and relate it to your own life experience. You wouldn’t have passed high school English if you hadn’t mastered that skill.
One-sided claims such as “Adolph Hitler was evil,” “People should be judged by what they can do, not by the color of their skin” or “Women in the 1800s had fewer freedoms than they do now” are not good topics for a pro/con paper, because you will find little credible evidence to support an opposing view.
You might even think of this as a pro/pro paper – that is, you present all the best arguments for a claim, then you shift gears completely and present all the best arguments for a competing claim.
Avoid making a claim about faith, government, women, sin, how things are different today, or otherwise trying to use a creative literary work to prove a point about the real world.
Sample Outline
While a college essay shouldn’t be broken up with labels like the ones I give below, the following outline will give you some sense of how to order your pro/con paper. A paper doesn’t need to have exactly three supporting points. It may be necessary to introduce a paragraph that defines terms or provides background. One of your supporting points may have sub-points that may need to be treated separately. You should feel free to modify the following outline to suit your needs, but it’s a good starting point as you plan your paper.
- Thesis (your “pro” argument)
- Supporting Point 1-1
- Supporting Point 1-2
- Supporting Point 1-3
- Antithesis (your “con” argument; not simply a negation of your “pro” argument, but one of the many possible alternative ways of looking at the situation)
- Rebuttal of Point 1-1
- Rebuttal of Point 1-2
- Rebuttal of Point 1-3
- New supporting point 2-1
- New supporting point 2-2
- Rebuttal of 2-1 and 2-2
- Synthesis (a new claim, accounting for the weaknesses of the “pro” argument and the strengths of the “con” argument)
- Supporting Point 3-1
- Supporting Point 3-2
- Conclusion (not just a restatement of your thesis) Now that you have looked at the pro and the con arguments and proposed a synthesis, what new insights can you draw from the text? Where has the whole journey of this paper taken you?
Remember that your thesis and conclusion should be about the text, not about love, women, guilt, race, America, or any other “real” thing that the text discusses. In a literature class, you are not studying reality – you are instead studying an individual artist’s representation of reality.
Keeping the Focus on the Literary Work
Here is another sample thesis statement, written in such a way that it does not focus on the literary work.
Throughout history, men have oppressed women, especially when they feel threatened by a woman's unusual accomplishments. In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne's beauty, independence, and refusal to conform to social norms all attract the disapproval of the male-dominated society.
Revise this thesis to focus squarely on the literary work.
In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne places Hester Prynne on the borderline of many groups. As a newcomer to Salem, she retains her European beauty. As a married woman who lives alone, she is not under the control of her husband. As a sinner who does not hide her guilt, she is the model of the redeemed Christian, whose behavior shows far more Christ-like mercy and charity than she herself received from the community leaders. While the male authorities of Salem punish her for her failings, Hawthorne presents a complex, admirable woman whose moral courage more than makes up for her moral failings.
For example, if you want to argue that Arthur Dimmesdale is a hypocrite, your paper would begin with a thesis paragraph, that specifies the topic, your precise opinion, and your main supporting points (the "blueprint").
Topic: Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
Opinion: He is a hypocrite
Blueprint: He lets Hester take all the punishment while he accepts none of the responsibility; he continues to preach to his congregation despite his state of sin; and by his silence he participates in and supports the unjust rule of a society that expects perfection, yet has no productive means for rehabilitating sinners (and forgiving sins).
Your paper would continue with a paragraph that supports each of your main points, in the order in which they were introduced.
Support your points not by drawing on personal examples from your own life or general statements about what you feel people “should” do. Rather, quote brief passages (with page numbers) from the literary work you are studying.
Begin with your strongest points, and move towards your weakest ones. But because this is a pro/con paper, instead of jumping right from your supporting points to the conclusion, you need to bring in an alternative view. You may do this in many ways.
You may return to the items you previously listed in your “pro” blueprint, and identify the weaknesses in each claim.
Counter-argument (following the same order in which the "pro" points were presented: While Hester accepts the public punishment, Dimmesdale suffers intensely in private; while Dimmesdale preaches, he is literally sick to death with guilt; While the members of his congregation think he is simply being humble in order to give them a good model to follow, and while Dimmesdale doesn’t correct their misconceptions by stating the precise nature of his sin, he is untruthful without actually telling a lie.
There isn’t much good evidence against the claim that Dimmesdale is perpetuating the status quo in Salem, because he does keep his job. If you can’t find good evidence against one of your “pro” points, it’s acceptable to concede the point – that is, admit that you won’t be able to knock it down. But now that you have rebutted each of the “pro” arguments, it’s time to launch an original set of claims that support your alternative viewpoint.
What if you want to argue that in order to be a hypocrite, you need a malicious, “holier than thou” attitude? While Dimmesdale does hide his sin, perhaps you want to argue that it’s not hypocrisy, but weakness, that guides his actions.
The “con” part of your paper would introduce new ideas -- ones that didn't appear in the "pro" part of the paper. For instance, the idea that it is not hypocrisy but weakness that motivates Dimmesdale’s actions. You would try to support that claim with two or three supporting points, then – and here’s the difference between an adequate paper and an excellent paper – you would rebut the “con” arguments just as thoroughly as you rebutted the “pro” arguments.
Ultimately, this paper might conclude that Hawthorne very carefully planned his novel to show the difference between the healing value of owning up to your sins (and facing consequences which are unpleasant but ultimately redeeming, as we see from Hester’s charitable acts and the accomplishments of Pearl as an adult) and the effects of hiding your sin (which is equally unpleasant yet ultimately destructive). You might conclude that Dimmesdale’s intimate knowledge of sin makes him a more sympathetic preacher, and that while he is slow to take responsibility for his crime, and you might examine his final action (which I won’t give away here) in order to determine whether Hawthorne presents enough evidence for the reader to see Dimmesdale as condemned or redeemed.
When Is a Claim Too Obvious?
Instructors who assign pro/con papers expect students to be able to demonstrate the ability to present and analyze the best evidence for – and the best evidence against -- a non-obvious claim. An argument without a credible opposing veiw is not really worth arguing.
The following claims are all too obvious.
- Adolph Hitler was evil.
- People should get over their racist fears.
- Hester Prynne is a strong, resilient heroine in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
Here is a non-obvious claim, that takes a nuanced stand on a complex issue.
Adolph Hitler rose to power not because he was an evil man who attracted evil followers, but because he was a master communicator, a brilliant political strategist, and an economic reformer whose domestic successes earned the respect of millions of ordinary German citizens.
This paper might continue with a paragraph on Hitler’s skill as a communicator, a paragraph on his skill as a political strategist, and a paragraph on his domestic successes. The “pro” section might conclude with an assessment of how his speeches, his political strategy, and his economic reforms revitalized postwar Germany and gave hope to the masses. The “con” section would address the viewpoint that Hitler was, in fact, evil, and that he did, in fact, attract evil followers. Like the “pro” section, the “con” section would require several paragraphs. It would not necessarily mirror the content or the structure of the “pro” section.
The original sample thesis (“Adolph Hitler was evil”) leaves no possible alternative viewpoint besides a binary inversion (“Adolph Hitler was not evil.”) You won’t find much rational evidence to defend such a perspective. A pro/con paper with such a simplistic thesis will simply collapse.
Portfolio 1
An evaluative presentation of your participation in the online discussions.
More details below.
In general, you will be asked to print out the blog entries you wrote on the assigned readings (including the readings in Writing about Literature and the poetry we looked at early in the term.
I don't expect an entry on each individual poem that we looked at. One entry for the 8/30 poems and one for the 9/1 poems would be fine, but a single entry that refers to poems from both would also be acceptable.
One component of the blogging portfolio will ask you to demonstrate that you are participaing in online discussions with your peers. If you visit peer blogs and leave comments there, or if you post comments on your own blog in response to comments left by your peers (or me), submit those in order to get participation credit.
Submission
In general, I want you to 1) post a single long blog entry, where you include links to the pages on your own site and on the pages of your classmates and 2) print out all the relevant work (you can scrunch the typesize down in order to save space). Please do not print the authoring pages, which are what you see after you log in with your username and password. The authoring pages look like this:
Instead, print out the pages that are visible to your readers when they visit "http://blogs.setonhill.edu/YourName/2005/08/blahblah.htm" or "http://blogs.setonhill.edu/YourName/001234.htm". They should not have "Movabletype Publishing Platform" on the top, they should instead have your name at the top.
Obviously, if you have changed the layout or colors on your blog, that's perfectly fine with me -- you don't need to make your blog look like the example. My point is to illustrate what the default weblog design currently looks like, and to differentiate from the authoring view.
Here are a few examples from another class. The content that this student has posted differs from the content you'll need to present, but you can get some idea of the form.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/ChristopherUlicne/005189.html
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/KarissaKilgore/008122.html
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AmandaCochran/005024.html
If you've been keeping up with the blogging homework, this assignment will be simply a matter of printing and compiling. Those of you who have had me in other classes, please look closely at these instructions -- I'm changing a few things. (Feel free to ask questions.) Towards the end of this posting, I answer some technical questions about trackbacks and creating links.
If you've fallen a bit behind, this assignment gives you the chance to catch up.
If you've fallen far behind, you have my sympathy, but no apologies. I've said several times that weblog entries will feel like a pointless chore if you start them only after the classroom discussion is already over.
Your portfolio is a collection of your best blog entries, representing your developing intellectual engagement with the concepts and skills we have examined.
The portfolio includes certain requirements, such as "Coverage" (that is, you should demonstrate that you have done the minimum blogging that I asked you to do -- a brief response to each assigned reading, with a few reflections) and "Depth" (a certain portion of your blog entries should demonstrate your ability to engage critically and at length with a difficult subject matter, far beyond a simple statement of a topic that you'd like to discuss in class).
Check the course outline page and see what's marked as "Discuss". For "Coverage" I would like to see an entry for most assigned readings; I would love to see an entry for each assigned section of readings (which means five entries for The Scarlet Letter, counting the comparison of Bartleby to The Customs House), but if you are planning to churn out two-sentence entries in the hours before the deadline, you might as well not bother -- I'd rather have a few in-depth entries than cookie-cutter last-minute entries.
I don't require you to include every blog entry you wrote -- if you only blogged two or three lines when we first disucssed a text, but you've got much more to say about it now, I'd rather see the more detailed entry.
For "Timeliness" I'd like you to include your best work online blogging that you completed before the deadline -- especially if you blogged early enough that you were able to participate in an online discussion before class.
Since blogging also involves commenting and linking, I'm asking you in your cover blog entry to link to entries in which you started or particpated in online conversations. In your cover blog, when appropriate, use the terms I've described below. (I am not giving you a magic number of entries for each category... that's for you to determine, given the "Coverage" requirement I've given you.)
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The Cover Entry: Post a blog entry that contains links to all the entries that you plan to submit for your portfolio. For the benefit of an outside reader (that is, someone who doesn't know what a blogging portfolio is), introduce each of these links and explain why they are significant. (For example, see "Favorite Blog Entries: Journaling Mode.")
The Collection: Your blogging portfolio is supposed to be a collection of your best weblog entries. For the purposes of this class, a "good" blog entry is one that demonstrates your intellectual engagement with the assigned readings and student panels, and/or the questions raised by your peers. I will accept a bulleted list of entries, but please write for an audience that does not know or care about your homework requirements.
- Print out your cover entry. If you would like to hand-write a note on this cover entry, I'd be happy to read and respond.
- Print out the other entries you plan to include, including pages from peer weblogs where you participated in the online discussion.
- On each entry you submit, hand-write a brief note that indicates which category or categories you feel this entry fulfills. Thus, the same entry might count for coverage, timeliness, and depth.
- Please *do not* insert each page into a plastic sleeve. I want to be able to jot notes on your printouts.
- I'd prefer that you use a single huge staple to keep it all together. A big metal clip will also probably be okay.
- If you use a big paperclip, it will probably come undone, so please submit paperclipped work in a folder or envelope.
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Coverage. Ensure that you have blogged something substantial (for a C-level grade, at least a paragraph) that demonstrates your intellectual involvement with the assigned readings.
Depth. Some of the "coverage" entries you selected above should demonstrate your ability to examine a concept in depth. Do some original online research, and link to the precise pages where you got ideas that helped you formulate your ideas. If you prefer to use a library book, quote a passage that you found interesting. Here are a few examples of a blog entry that goes above and beyond the standard "what I thought about the book" blog entry: Fitting in in the Diamond Age and Forced Reading-- Beloved Character.
Interaction. Of the "Coverage" blogs entries included above, some should demonstrate your ability to use weblogs to interact with your peers. For instance, you might disagree (politely) with something a peer has written; link to and quote from the peer's blog entry, then carefully (and respectfully) explain where you disagree. Rather than hurl accusations in order to make the other person look bad, cheerfully invite the other person to explain their perspective. Quote passages from the texts your peer has cited, or do additional research that helps unveil the truth. (These may or may not include some entries you have already included among your "Depth" entries.)
Discussions. Blogging feels lonely when you aren't getting any comments; you will feel more motivated to blog if you enjoy (and learn from) the comments left by your readers. Your portfolio should include entries (which may or may not overlap with either the "Interaction" or "Depth" entries) that demonstrate that your blog sparked a conversation that furthered your intellectual examination of a literary subject.
Timeliness. A timely blog entry is one that was written early enough that it sparked a good online discussion, before the class discussion. A timely blog entry might also be an extra one written after the class discussion, if it reacts directly to something brought up in class. The blog entries that you write the night before the portfolio is due won't count in this category. And don't try to change the date in your blog entries -- I know that trick! ;)
Xenoblogging. "Xeno" means "foreign," so xenoblogging (a term that I coined last term) means the work that you do that helps other people's weblogs. Your portfolio should include three entries (which may or may not overlap with the ones you have already selected for "Coverage") that demonstrate your willingness to contribute selflessly and generously to the online classroom community. Examples of good xenoblogging:
- The Comment Primo: Be the first to comment on a peer's blog entry; rather than simply say "Nice job!" or "I'm commenting on your blog," launch an intellectual discussion; return to help sustain it.
The Comment Grande: Write a long, thoughtful comment in a peer's blog entry. Refer to and post the URLs of other discussions and other blog entries that are related.
The Comment Informative: If your peer makes a general, passing reference to something that you know a lot about, post a comment that offers a detailed explanation. (For example, the in the third comment on a recent blog entry about the history and culture of print, Mike Arnzen mentions three books that offer far more information than my post did.)
The Link Gracious: If you got an idea for a post by reading something somebody else wrote, give credit where credit is due. (If, in casual conversation, we credited the source of every point we make, we'd get little accomplished. But since a hyperlink is so easy to create, it's not good practice -- or good ethics -- to hide the source of your ideas.) If a good conversation is simmering on someone else's blog -- whether you are heavily involved or not -- post a link to it and invite your own readers to join in.
Ex 1-3: Revision of Ex 1-1 or 1-2
Due in my office, by 5pm, Friday October 7.
Submission policy: No credit will be given if the paper is incomplete.
The paper is incomplete if it is not submitted with all three of the following components.
1. Rough Draft
Include your rough draft (with my comments).
2. Revision
2.1 Follow MLA Style.
2.2 Staple it on top of your rough draft.
2.3 Highlight changes. On your revision, highlight editing changes in one color and revision changes in another. (See "Revision vs. Editing." Obviously I want to see a lot of revision.)
3. Submission Note
In an informal note to me, describe the most significant changes you made when revising this paper. What is your greatest success in revising this paper? What would you do if you had more time?
If, in the process of revising your paper, you realize you need to change your thesis statement, or if you change your mind, that's perfectly fine. I'm not forcing you to stick with the same thesis as your first draft.
Use brief quotations from the literary text, and integrate them smoothly into your own argument. (Don't write the whole paper first, then look for quotations to support your argument.)
I am not asking you to refer to any source other than the primary text itself. If you do choose to cite an outside source, please ensure that it is credible.
Read "Integrating Quotations," but note that page focuses on research papers. The techniques involved for integrating quotations from literary sources are the same.
Paper 1 Draft (4p minimum)
The basic criteria for this paper are the same as those introduced for exercise 1-2, although that exercise included a sample outline only because some students were clamoring for one. (We talked about how the outline didn't really help you write the paper, so I think that experiment has served its purpose.)
What is different for this paper is that I am asking you to include academic research -- that is, a peer-reviewed academic article.
Required Reading:
Researched Essays
Doing Literary Research
If you use Google as your starting point when you seek sources for your literature paper, you will waste plenty of time, and you may end up with sources that were authored by high school sophomores. Plenty of academic journals publish full versions of their articles online, but most do not. Since academic journals cost money to produce, the publishers don't give their articles away for free -- instead, they sell access rights to libraries.
Remember the research skills you learned in freshman comp, and use the library database to find academic books on literature, and peer-reviewed academic journal articles.
Databases you should use include Academic Search Elite, Modern Language. You might also ask a librarian to show you the new Literature Resource Center.
You may not find a whole book devoted to color symbolism in The Scarlet Letter. You may not find a whole article devoted to the particular Edgar Allen Poe poem you want to write about.
But that doesn't mean you should eject your topic and look for something else. If you can't find a source on parallels between the disease described in The Masque of the Red Death and the ebola virus, you might instead look for a book that describes Poe's basic knowledge of science. (Though I did, in fact, find just such an article in a journal called Emerging Infectious Diseases.)
But herein lies an important lesson:
If you write your paper first, and then "look for quotes" to support the paper you have already written, you will find the research process tedious and meaningless.That "research" strategy may have sufficed in high school, but it will not work in college.
You should know the author, the article title, and the name of the journal in which the article appeared.
Be very careful to note whether you have found an article that reviews a book. In this case, the author of the article is not the one who conducted the research that went into the book. (Ideally, you should go and find the book being reviewed.)
SHU has an inter-library loan program that may help you get books in time for you to submit your revision of this paper, even if you'll have to write the rough draft based on resources that you can get your hands on now.
Criteria (same as Ex 2-1):
The paper should avoid plot summary
- X "This is a story about..."
- X "After the protagonist discovers the truth, he gets a real shock: his wife is just as dishonest as he was!").
The same goes for character description. Assume your reader knows the story well, and has a copy within reach.
The paper should avoid gratuitous personal responses
- X "This exciting passage makes me think of the time I was climbing a mountain with my friend Sally, who..."
- X "When I first read this passage, I thought..."
- X "People should be judged by what they can do, not by who their parents are."
The paper should make a claim about the literary text, not about life or faith or politics or women or anything else in general. (Literature is the study of a particular artist's representation of reality, not the study of reality itself.)
Your thesis should be a claim about the specific work in particular
The harsh faith of the Puritan fathers perpetuated misery, forcing imperfect people to choose between keeping up the external appearances of moral perfection, or risk being rejected by the society they needed in order to survive.
The above thesis is unacceptable because it makes a claim about the Puritan faith, and refers to the nature of moral perfection and the social needs of the human individual for support. That way lies chaos.
Sometimes religious authorities are corrupt. One example of such a corrupt society can be found in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, where [plot summary begins here].
A different kind of problem. This one makes a claim about religious societies, and uses The Scarlet Letter as a handy example. If you swapped out this text for a different text that showed a corrupt religious society, or a news article about corruption in religion, the points the author wants to make will pretty much be the same.
Consider instead the following:
While Hawthorne is deeply critical of the Puritan society he represents in The Scarlet Letter, the story does not advocate the complete rejection of moral authority. Rather, it illustrates, through Dimmesdale's demise, the destructive power of moral irresponsibility, and through Hester's eventual triumph, the healing power of accepting responsibility for one's own weakness.
The revision makes a claim about Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and refers to specific incidents from the novel for support.
Background
In your high school English class, if you read a short story about tension between a mother and daughter, your teacher probably rewarded you for writing an essay in which you described parallels between the story and your own life. Your teacher wanted evidence that you had read and understood the story, and so your teacher rewarded you for summarizing the plot, for describing how you felt while reading it, and for explaining what you might have done if you were in a similar situation.
In a college literature class, your instructor expects that you already know how to summarize a work of literature and relate it to your own life experience. You wouldn’t have passed high school English if you hadn’t mastered that skill.
One-sided claims such as “Adolph Hitler was evil,” “People should be judged by what they can do, not by the color of their skin” or “Women in the 1800s had fewer freedoms than they do now” are not good topics for a pro/con paper, because you will find little credible evidence to support an opposing view.
You might even think of this as a pro/pro paper – that is, you present all the best arguments for a claim, then you shift gears completely and present all the best arguments for a competing claim.
Avoid making a claim about faith, government, women, sin, how things are different today, or otherwise trying to use a creative literary work to prove a point about the real world.
Ex 2-1: Poe & Dickinson Cover Poetry Slam (in class)
Ex 2-2: Literary Criticism
Find three peer-reviewed academic articles that present different critical approaches to the same text or author. Write a coherent essay that analyzes the arguments made by the three academic authors you chose.
Note -- I am not asking you to make your own argument, and I am certainly not asking you to summarize the academic articles you have found.
Instead, I would like you to demonstrate your ability to identify the components of the argument the authors make. What evidence to they use? What different kinds of sources do they use? What opposing or alternative voices do they introduce?
After you have written your own informal responses to each separate academic work, please come up with a thesis about the process of literary criticism, that you defend by quoting from the academic sources you have found.
For instance, you may look at a marxist reading, a feminist reading, and a new historical reading of Huck Finn. You might not find three academic articles that all discuss the same Emily Dickinson poem, but that's okay. In this paper, I'm asking you to talk about the method of argument, not about the argument itself, and not about the literary works being discussed.
You are welcome to think of this paper as advanced research for your next big paper, but you are also free to change your topic later if you like.
Some helpful starting points:
Wikipedia on Literary Criticism
Foster, Chapter 16
Foster, Appendix A
Paper 2 Draft (6p minimum)
Write a paper that uses peer-reviewed academic sources to defend an intellectually complex, non-obvious claim about one or more of the works on the syllabus.
Your paper should demonstrate your developing ability to apply a consistent critical approach (economic determinism, gender theory, historical-topical, etc.), to integrate quotations from quality sources (at least 4, in addition to your literary work or works), and to acknowledge a variety of interpretations (including evidence that challenges your thesis).
Integrating Quotations
Please avoid wordy, high-schoolish constructions like the following:
In the following passage from the book My Big Boring Academic Study by Professor H. Gluteus Windbag III, it talks on page 34 about how Huck and Jim become friends despite a few rough spots in their relationship. [Insert long quotation here.] This quote shows how Huck and Jim are indeed friends.Prefer instead a graceful inegration of key words and phrases from outside sources, in a manner that does not interrupt your own flow of thoughts.
While Jim is understandably worried about what Windbag calls Huck's "occasional lapses in fidelity" (34), Jim's faith in Huck is "ultimately justified."(See my handout on integrating sources.)
Note that this is a draft, so I don't expect perfection, but I will be able offer you more directly useful help if you give me a well-thought-out draft, rather than six flabby pages of plot summary and personal reflection.
As I emphasized when discussing Exercise 2-2 in class, my intention is that you find good academic articles first, and that you choose a thesis that you can defend based on the research you've already found. If you write the paper first, and then go online to "find quotes to support your argument," then you are not really doing research at all.
Paper 2 Revision
Rescheduled from last week.
Update, 17 Nov: In order to evaluate your revision properly, I am asking to see:
1) your rough drafts (including the comments I made on your papers),
2) a highlighted copy of your new draft.
3) a submission note (explaining your changes and reflecting on your accomplishments)
By "highlighted copy" I mean a fresh printout of your latest draft, with all the changes highlighted -- one color for edits and minor changes (spelling, punctuation, grammar), another color for major changes (introducing a new source, reorganizing a paragraph, etc).
Ex 3-1: Paper 3 Presubmission Report
This short exercise is designed to get you started on Paper 3.
As with the previous papers, your goal for Paper 3 is to defend a non-obvious claim about one or several literary works on our syllabus, demonstrating your ability to incorporate direct quotations from the primary (literary) and secondary (scholarly or historical) sources. Your thesis should be worth arguing -- that is, you should present and account for credible evidence that opposes the claim you want to make.
Supply the following information.
1) Your thesis statement (including the precise opinion and blueprint -- that is, a short list of your supporting points, in the order in which you plan to discuss them in the full paper).
2) Several direct quotations from the literary source(s) you plan to study.
2A) Include quotations that support your thesis...
2B) ...as well as quotations that refute your thesis.
3) Direct quotations from outside sources
3A) Include quotations that support your thesis..
3B) ...as well as quotations that refute your thesis.
4) Your preliminary conclusion.
5) An example of the efficient integration of a brief quotation from an outside source, into one of your own sentences that makes the point that you want to make. Use an MLA parenthetical citation to cite your source properly.
6) A full Works Cited page
Paper 3 Draft (10p minimum)
The syllabus states that the 10p draft is due today (or Wednesday, for the night section), but I'll accept a revision of the first draft until 5pm Friday.
We're scheduled to workshop the paper today, and I want to encourage you to bring something substantial to the workshop -- the more substantial the better. I'll let you take what you learned from the workshop and turn in a quick revision by 5pm Friday, and that's what I'll grade for your draft.
But I'm still going to collect whatever you have on the original due date -- 29 Nov.
In order for me to have the time to review and comment on your draft, and in order for you to have time to apply my comments, the final draft of Paper 3 is being delayed as well.
Final Exam (For Tu-Th section; 3:30pm)
An identification, short-answer, and essay section will cover the second half of term. An additional essay section will be cumulative.
Final Exam (Wednesday section; 6pm)
An identification, short-answer, and essay section will cover the second half of term. An additional essay section will be cumulative.