Assignments

English 1102: English Composition II, Fall 2016

Section 03: TR 2:00-3:15PM, Arts & Sciences 345

In Class Activities

1. Persona and Tone

We just did a close reading of a poem focusing on persona and tone. Let's practice that method of analysis on some other poems from today's reading. Divide into groups of 3 or 4 and elect secretaries to report back each group's discussion of the issues below to the class.

Here are the poems:

2. Theme

Divide into small groups based on the short story you wrote about in Informal Writing 2. Share your responses among your group and then reconcile the individual group member themes into a specific theme that takes into account all members' interpretations.

3. Analyzing a Book of Poetry

Continuing the Informal Writing 3 assignment, today, we're going to

  1. divide into 6 groups of 4-5 members,
  2. select a poem from your group's assigned selection,
  3. do a close reading of the poem, and
  4. analyze how the core conflict and overall meaning of the poem fits
  5. into the core conflict and overall meaning of the poetic sequence (Proem, I, II, III Sheffield Ghazals)
  6. (if you have time, compose a thesis statement for a possible paper)

Here are the groups:

  1. Proem: "The Pen"
  2. I: "My Mother's R & R," "Showing My Father through Freedom," "Hitchhiker," "THe Man in the Chair," "Picnic"
  3. II: "The Cellist," "Running on Silk," "The Deconstruction of Emily Dickinson," "THe Night," "Tree"
  4. III Sheffield Ghazals: "The Biting Insects," "Paradise Elsewhere," "Collusion of Elements," "Driving West," "Passing the Cemetery"

4. Analyzing a Book of Fiction

Just as we previously discussed how to read not only a poem but a collection of poetry, let's now consider how to read not only a short story but also a book of fiction. First, break into six small groups, each responsible for one of the first six stories/chapters:

  1. Found Objects
  2. The Gold Cure
  3. Ask Me If I Care
  4. Safari
  5. You (Plural)
  6. X's and O's

Next, respond to the following four issues (and one bonus question), and be ready to report your conclusions to the class:

  1. Do a character sketch of the chapter's protagonist, including her internal conflicts and psychological traits.
  2. Note the current chapter's time period, especially in relation to the other chapters' settings.
  3. Discuss both the chapter's key external conflict and the chapter's main idea.
  4. Interpret how and why the novel shifts narrators and time periods. Explore why characters' futures are explained in brief flash forwards.
  5. Bonus Question: Is this book of fiction a short story collection or a novel? Explain your reasoning.

5. The Significance of a Work of Fiction

We've practiced closely reading poems and short passages of fiction at length, and you're deep into writing the close reading paper. For the next part of the course, in addition to literary explication and analysis, we're going to address the personal and cultural significance of literature. Break into five small groups. Each group should discuss the following issues and report back to the class:

6. Character, Conflict, and Confrontation

For the first day of discussion of our final play, Ayad Akhtar's Disgraced, let's analyze not only the characters and conflicts of the play but also how the play confronts the audience. Break into five groups to discuss the following questions:

  1. What are the character's key traits?
  2. What are the character's core conflicts—internally within herself and externally with other characters and externally with society?
  3. What arc does the character have over the course of the play? In other words, where does she start and where does she finish—and why?
  4. In an interview, the playwright discusses how the play is "A confrontation with the recalcitrant tribal tendencies we all harbor." He also hopes that "what it can do is change the way we see things individually. I aspired to accompish with this structure a kind of shattering of the audience, after which they have to find some way to put themselves back together" (95). Reflect on your reaction to the play's violence in particular and concluding tableau in general. How do the play's psychological, religious, gender, and national conflicts affect you?

Here are the characters:

7. Critical Approaches to Literature

Our class has emphasized the close reading and cultural significance of literature. However, we've also implicitly looked at literature through the lens of economics, psychology, archetypes, gender, and our own responses. Today, let's explicitly interpret Ayad Akhtar's Disgraced through those lens.

 

First, divide into your research groups.

 

Second, collaboratively write a 75-100 practice annotation for Erin Neel's "Muslim is the New Black in Ayad Akhtar's Disgraced" that summarizes and evaluates the article by 1) identifying the question, issue, or topic that the essay is investigating, 2) defining the essay's thesis or conclusion regarding the play, and 3) explaining how the article helps your understanding of the play. Submit the annotation to the Informal Writing 5 assignment dropbox in GeorgiaVIEW.

 

Third, discuss Akhtar's play through the lens of the your group's assigned interpretive approach, and report your conclusions to the class:

  1. Marxist Literary Criticism: How do socioeconomic conditions function in the play? Does the play reinforce or criticize capitalist, imperialist, or classist values?
  2. Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: What unconscious dreams and anxieties do the main characters in the play have, in other words, what motivations are they repressing? How do the main characters' sexualities and relationships with death define their identities?
  3. Archetypal and Myth Criticism: Do the main characters fit any archetypes? Does the narrative fit any mythic genre?
  4. Feminist Literary Criticism and Gender Studies: How does the play portray men and women, and how does the play define masculinity and femininity?
  5. Reader-Response Criticism: How do the play and the reader interact to create meaning? Analyze how the play intellectually and emotionally affects you, and reflect upon why it does so.
  6. Deconstructive Criticism: Does the play convey contradictory or unstable messages, for instance about a character, conflict, or theme? How is the meaning of the play unstable and subject to slippage?

Informal Responses

The goal of informal writing assignments is to help you to think actively and write critically about literature. These short assignments of 1-2 pages will also prepare you to write the longer, formal papers. You will be asked to analyze some element of literature (conflict, character, setting, imagery, figure of speech, etc.), respond to a thematic issue, or summarize scholarly criticism in preparation for formal papers and research projects.

 

Responses will be due by the start of class on the due date as a Word or RTF file in MLA style (here is a template; and here is how to convert) in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Informal Writing #. Retrieve your graded electronically submitted paper approximately one week after submission by logging into GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Informal Writing #. Here is a grading rationale and calculation of informal writing assignments.

1. Symbolism or Point of View

First, choose either T. C. Boyle's "The Love of My Life" or Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Second, choose a brief passage (a few sentences, a short paragraph) that exemplifies either the main symbol or the story's point of view. As you closely read the passage, i.e., attending to the subtle language cues like we've been practicing in class, discuss what the symbol or point of view conveys about the overall meaning of the story. What idea or theme does the symbol point to? Why is the story told from this particular point of view, and what does the attitude toward the main character(s) imply about the main idea? Due Thursday, August 25.

2. Theme

First, choose either Chinua Achebe's "Dead Man's Path," Andre Dubus, "The Fat Girl," or Toni Cade Bambara, "The Lesson." Second, do the prewriting activity on page 188 of McMahan's Literature and the Writing Process, "Exercise: Figuring Out the Theme," adapted here for your story. Discuss the significance of the following issues, writing a couple of sentences for each:

  1. The title.
  2. The setting.
  3. The characters.
  4. Any significant objects.
  5. Any changes that you notice in the characters and their feelings toward themselves or one another.
  6. Any reversals or surprises that occur.
  7. Any comments or observations the narrator makes about the characters and their actions
  8. The ending.

Third, do the prewriting activiting "Exercise: Stating the Theme": "After writing out the answers to the questions . . . try to sum up the theme in a complete sentence. You may need to need to rewrite the sentence several times until you can express the theme satisfactorily. . . . Are they any secondary themes that enrich the story and add to the primary theme?" (McMahan 188). Due Thursday, September 1.

3. Analyzing a Book of Poetry

Select your favorite passage (about 5-10 lines) from the first half of Galway Kinnell's Imperfect Thirst (1-41). First, do a close reading of the passage like we've been practicing in class discussion. Then, comment on how the passage fits into the overall meaning of the poem. Finally, discuss how the poem and its passage fit into the sequence of poems, addressing the meaning of the poetic sequence so far in the book. Due Thursday, September 8.

4. From Theme to Significance

To prepare for the next formal paper on significance, analyze the conflicts and themes of A Streetcar Named Desire. Then argue why those conflicts and themes are significant, either personally and/or culturally. In other words, what personal, ethical, psychological, political, and/or cultural consequences does the play yield? Due Tuesday, October 4.

5. Writing an Research Annotation

In order to practice writing an annotation for the annotated bibliography part of the research project, the final informal writing assignment will have both an individual and group component. Individually, read Erin Neel's "Muslim is the New Black in Ayad Akhtar's Disgraced" (available in the GeorgiaVIEW course packet), and then submit a very brief response (a few sentences) to the GeorgiaVIEW Informal Writing 5 assignment dropbox that 1) identifies the question, issue, or topic that the essay is investigating, 2) defines the source's thesis or conclusion regarding the play, and 3) explains how the article helps your understanding of the play. The individual writing component is due in the GeorgiaVIEW Informal Writing 5 assignment dropbox by 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 10; failure to submit by this time will result in half credit for the assignment. Research groups will use individual responses to collectively write a 75-100 word summary and evaluation of the article in class that 1) identifies the question, issue, or topic that the essay is investigating, 2) defines the source's thesis or conclusion regarding the play, and 3) explains how the article helps your understanding of the play. The collaborative writing component is due in GeorgiaVIEW Informal Writing 5 assignment dropbox by 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 10. Due Thursday, November 10.

Peer Responses

Goals

The dual goals of this course are for you to read and write about literature in a variety of manners. Informal writing and formal papers allow you to analyze the texts. Peer response sessions extend the reading and writing process by allowing you and your peers to engage in direct oral and written dialogue about matters of composition and interpretation, with the ultimate goal of improving your formal papers. You have the opportunity to revise your first two formal papers based upon comments by your peers and professor. You will provide constructive criticism to two or three other members of the class as will they to you.

 

Note: If a group member does not submit her paper in a format your computer can read, such as Word or RTF, at least two days before the peer response session, the rest of the group is not responsible for responding to her paper.

Paper 1 Peer Response

Here is the peer response process for Paper 1:

  1. Writers upload their papers to both GeorgiaVIEW > Discussions > Paper 1 Peer Response > Group # Topic and GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Paper 1 Draft 1 on Thursday, September 19.
  2. Each group member reads, take notes on, and prepares to respond to just fellow group members' papers before the peer response class.
  3. We will not be holding regular class during the peer response sessions. You need only attend class during your group's scheduled date and time, see below.
  4. For the peer response session, either bring your laptop or paper print outs of the papers. The peer response group will elect a secretary to record the group's collective response to the Paper 1 Close Reading peer response sheet for each writer (spending about 15 minutes to review each paper), and then the secretary will upload the completed sheets for each paper to GeorgiaVIEW> Discussions > Paper 1 Peer Response > Group # Topic.

Here are the group meeting dates and times:

Paper 2 Peer Response

Here is the peer response process for Paper 2:

  1. Writers upload their papers to both GeorgiaVIEW > Discussions > Paper 2 Peer Response > Group # Topic and GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Paper 2 Draft 1 on Thursday, October 13.
  2. Each group member reads, take notes on, and prepares to respond to just fellow group members' papers before the peer response class.
  3. Peer responses will take place on Tuesday, October 18 at 2:00PM.
  4. For the peer response session, either bring your laptop or paper print outs of the papers. The peer response group will elect a secretary to record the group's collective response to the Paper 2 Significance peer response sheet for each writer (spending about 15 minutes to review each paper), and then the secretary will upload the completed sheets for each paper to GeorgiaVIEW> Discussions > Paper 2 Peer Response > Group # Topic.

Here are the groups (all groups meet Tuesday, October 18 at 2:00PM):

Paper 1 Close Reading

We have discussed at length poems by Broder, Hemphill, and Olds and short stories by Erdrich, and Boyle; and we have read even more works by Donne, O'Hara, Piercy, Lorde, Yeats, Stafford, Cullen, Blanco, Oates, Achebe, Dubus, and Bambara. You have written about some of these works in your informal responses. Now is your opportunity to rigorously analyze a work of literature. For the first formal paper, write a four-five page essay that either 1) explicates, line-by-line, a short poem assigned on the syllabus, being sure to illuminate, through nuanced reading of figurative language, diction, connotation, and symbol, how the central tensions, ambiguities, and contradictions constitute a cohesive theme or 2) examines the most important passage in one of the short stories we have read so far, interpreting it sentence-by-sentence through nuanced reading of figurative language, diction, connotation, and symbol, and arguing its centrality to the core conflicts, character, and overall theme of the story. In other words, using either this short poem or this short story key passage, you should write a paper that interprets the universal theme of the work by explicating the fundamental conflicts within the particular lines of text. Your essay should be driven by a thesis that argues the work's theme and logically organized by close reading of the text: unpack the tension and conflict, connotation and diction, idea and theme.

 

1. Pick any poem or short story on the syllabus up to Tuesday, September 13.

2. Do a close reading/textual analysis of the poem or key story passage that explicates particular, significant words and lines.

3. Interpret the key conflict and overall theme/meaning/idea of the work of literature.

 

Note: You will write at least one draft of this paper and have the option of revising. The first draft, which will also be reviewed by your peers, will be given a tentative grade. If you choose to revise, the second draft grade will replace the first. If you earn an F on the first draft, you must revise, otherwise you will fail the course.

Parameters

Paper 2 Significance

In the first formal paper, you closely read a poem or short story passage and in so doing explicated how the literary language set up the core conflict and overall theme. Since then, we have discussed how literature is significant both personally and culturally. In the second formal paper, you will also interpret the conflict and main idea of a literary work of your choice on the syllabus up to Thursday, October 6, but not the one on which you wrote your first paper. Beyond simply discussing the issues, you will also examine the text's personal or cultural significance, in other words, its meaning in either your life or the lives of others. Discuss either why this work of literature is important to you or why this work is or should be important to the world. Some questions to consider include but are not limited to: Why is the literary work important—or not? What ethical, psychological, political, or cultural consequences does the text have? Who do you think should read this work, why do you think they need to read it, and how do you think it will affect them? How has the work of literature confronted, challenged, or changed either your world view or the belief system held by the particular audience? Your thesis should make a claim not only about the meaning of the text but also about the text's significance. Your paper should not only analyze the meaning of the work through textual evidence but also argue the text's significance.

  1. Select any work of literature on the syllabus up to October 6, but not one already written about in Paper 1.
  2. Using textual evidence, analyze the core conflict and key meaning of the literary work.
  3. Argue why and how the literary work is significant either personally or culturally.

Note: You will write at least one draft of this paper and have the option of revising. The first draft, which will also be reviewed by your peers, will be given a tentative grade. If you choose to revise, the second draft grade will replace the first. If you earn an F on the first draft, you must revise, otherwise you will fail the course.

Parameters

Group Project

Groups of 4-5 will choose a work of literature from the assigned genre (poetry, fiction, drama) that is neither by an author on our syllabus nor researched in high school, compile a 16-20 source annotated bibliography of scholarly literary criticism on the text, write a 4-6 page paper summarizing the literary debate on the text, and share their findings with the class in a 20 minute presentation and 10 minute question and answer session.

 

You may write your research paper on the same literary work as your group project as long as each group member proves her own distinct topic; or you may choose another text which you've not previously written on in college or high school, subject to professor approval.

Timeline

Week

Date

Due
Week 10

October 18

sign up
Week 11

October 27

topic
Week 12 November 1

bibliography

plan of action
Week 14 November 15

groups 1-3 conferences
November 17

groups 3-5 conferences
Week 15 November 22

mandatory research paper thesis/outline and peer response

groups 1-2 presentations
Week 16

November 29

research paper optional draft and peer response

groups 3-4 presentations

December 1

research paper optional peer response

groups 5-6 presentations
Finals

December 8

research paper

1. Sign Up

On Tuesday, October 18, you will self-select your groups of 4-5 students. Those who have no preference and those who are absent will be placed in a group by the professor.

 

Group

Students

Group 1 Poetry

Work: Sylvia Plath, poetry ("Daddy," "Mad Girl's Love Song," "Tulips," "Lady Lazarus," "Deer Island," "The Munich Mannequins")

Presentation: Tuesday, November 22

1 Kayla Arrington (Orwell, Animal Farm)

2 Maddie Butz (Plath, "Daddy")

3 Rachel Sigler (Dickinson)

4 Zade Zafar (Orwell, 1984)

Group 2 Fiction

Work: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wall-Paper"

Presentation: Tuesday, November 22

5 Lisa Bonner (Gilman, self-expression)

6 Connor Johnson (Brave New World or 1984)

7 Erica Smith (Gilman, mental health)

8 Amanda Wiggins (Poe, "Black Cat")

Group 3 Drama

Work: Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Presentation: Tuesday, November 29

9 Destiny Jackson (nihilism)

10 Madison Link (lack of meaning)

11 Hayden McCullough (irony)

12 Ellie Williams (symbolism)

Group 4 Poetry

Work: Robert Frost, poetry ("Mending Wall")

Presentation: Tuesday, November 29

13 Rachel Hill

14 Lindsay Johnson

15 Jessica Mann

16 Kaydee Rowland (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)

Group 5 Fiction

Work: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death

Presentation: Thursday, December 1

17 Laurel Brodkorb (Adams, A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

18 Jessalyn Johnson (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)

19 Genevieve MacDonald (Vonnegut, war)

20 Sarah Robles (Vonnegut)

Group 6 Drama

Work: Arthur Miller, The Crucible

Presentation: Thursday, December 1

21 Peyton Goss

22 Amber Haney

23 Christine Lane (Brontë, Jane Eyre)

24 Luke Nelson

25 Jordan Yacoub (Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray)

2. Topic

Poetry groups will select a few poems or a book of poetry by a single poet; fiction groups will select a couple of short stories, a short story collection, or a novel by a single author; drama groups will select a full length play by a playwright. Groups may not select works by authors who are on our syllabus or previously researched by members in high school. In other words, choose an author and work you have not studied in this or other classes.

 

On Thursday, October 27, groups will submit three ranked choices of literary works to GeorgiaVIEW > Course Assignments > Assignments > Group Project, and the professor will advise and approve the final selection based upon appropriateness and researchability.

3. Bibliography and Plan of Action

On Tuesday, November 1, groups will submit to GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Group Project

  1. a 20 source bibliographical list in MLA Format of approximately half scholarly books from the GCSU and USG libraries and approximately half scholarly journal articles from databases like Academic Search Complete using the Literary Research Methods handout.
    • Do not submit primary texts by the author, encyclopedia entries, magazine articles, newspaper articles, book reviews, websites, or study guides like Sparknotes and MasterPlots, or plagiarism paper mills.
    • While other professors might consider encyclopedias, newspapers, magazines, and website study guides to be appropriate for college level research, I deem academic books and peer reviewed journal articles the only appropriate sources for scholarly research.
  2. a plan of action listing when the group will meet outside of class as well as each group member's responsibilities

4. Conference

On Tuesday, November 15, Groups 1-3 will conference with the professor while other groups work in class on their projects. On Thursday, Groups 4-6 will conference.

 

For the group conference, groups will

  1. discuss the status of your group project, including meeting times and individual member responsibilities, and
  2. provide the final group bibliography, in MLA format (no annotations necessary yet, the annotations will be submitted on the day of the group presentation).

Individual group members will

  1. compose a working thesis for their individual Paper 3 Research.

5. Presentation, Annotated Bibliography, Debate Paper

On Tuesday, November 22, Tuesday, November 29, and Thursday, December 1, groups will teach the class their selected literary works in a 20 minute presentation with a 10 minute question and answer session. On the day of the presentation, one group member will submit the group's 16-20 source annotated bibliography (4 sources per group member) and their 4-6 page literary debate paper to GeorgiaVIEW > Assignents > Group Project. Be sure to put the annotated bibliography and literary debate paper in one file.

 

Your presentation may use any of the equipment in our room (chalkboard, projector, speakers, web browser, Powerpoint, DVD). Brief clips like YouTube may be used but do not count toward the 20 minute time limit.

 

An annotated bibliography is an MLA styled works cited list of scholarly books, book chapters, and peer-reviewed journal articles that provides a 75-100 word summary of each secondary source's argument as well as how the secondary source interprets and illuminates the meaning of the primary text, i.e., the literary work. Do not simply summarize the topic, provide the thesis. I recommend answering the following questions:

  1. What question, issue, or topic is the source investigating?
  2. What is the source's thesis or conclusion regarding the work of literature?
  3. How does the source help your understanding of the work of literature?

And I suggest using this template.

 

A literary debate paper summarizes the literary research findings, poses the predominant questions literary critics ask about the meaning of the literary work, and argues the opposing ways of interpreting the primary text.

 

Submit the bibliography and paper as one file to GeorgiaVIEW > Group Project on the day of your presentation. Retrieve your graded project approximately one week later in GeorgiaVIEW > Group Projects.

6. Group Policy

Each group member is responsible for staying connected with the group, attending meetings, actively participating in meetings, doing her delegated work, i.e., contributing her fair share to the project. In order to hold singular members accountable in a team project, each group member should individually compose and submit to GeorgiaVIEW > Dropbox > Group Project - Individual Evaluation a paragraph that assesses their own performance and their peers' service to the assignment. If it becomes apparent that a group member did not participate (skipped meetings, didn't complete her assigned work, etc.), that member will be assessed individually rather than receive the group grade.

Paper 3 Research

In the first formal paper, you analyzed a particular passage, and in the second paper you not only analyzed but also evaluated the significance of a literary work. In the third paper, you will move beyond your own analyses and arguments by engaging what real-world literary critics find significant about a work of literature. For the research paper, select a literary work that you have neither studied in high school nor have written about in this class or any other class; then clear your choice with your professor. (If you submit a paper that you wrote for another class, you will fail the assignment and the course.) You may write about the same literary work as your group project, but you may not write on the same issues as your fellow group members.

 

Write an in depth analysis and interpretation of an issue (some meaning that is in dispute, some interpretation that is open to debate, or a key conflict in the text) that both you and literary critics find provocative. Your paper should integrate at least 5 works of scholarly criticism (journal articles, books, and book chapters) to provide support and counterargument for your reading of the issue.

 

The threefold emphasis of this paper is your thoughtful evaluation of the issue at work in the text via rigorous analysis of the text and the use the secondary sources to aid and challenge your interpretation and critical judgment.

 

You submitted the previous formal papers to both your peers and professor for review (and a tentative grade from your professor) in order to develop the best compositional practice of drafting and revision. In this paper, in order to prepare you for regular, non-composition classes in which the professor only grades the final paper, you will be expected to draft and revise on your own with only the help of your peers and without the first draft grade from your professor.

Parameters

 

© Alex E. Blazer 2024