Wednesday, September 16th
Selections from Bhagavad-gita (1282-1301) (Volume A)
Monday, September 28th
Medea, lines 1-680 (pp. 783-803)
OR
Creation stories on the syllabus for 9/21 (you’ll be covering these on the 21st, but you can hand in your short paper on this date).
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Assignment:
- Repeat the process you did for the first short paper: Find a passage that sparks your interest, that you think could have multiple meanings, or that you find ambiguous: in other word, a passage about which you have some questions (remember short paper no 1!).
- Pay attention to the language of the passage: observe the language of the text by annotating it. In other words, underline/highlight key words and phrases–”anything that strikes you as surprising or significant, or that raises questions”–and make notes about the text in the margins (provide a cell phone picture or a copy of your annotations so I can see them) (Kain). As you did for the first short paper, ask questions that arise for you based on the passage (repetitions that strike you as odd, characters whose motivations are unclear to you, questions about whether a passage is celebrating or critiquing a social value presented in the text–see short paper prompt #1).
- After you have attended to the words of the passage and asked your questions, try to pose an argument that answers one of your questions using what you have observed about the text. Note that an argument should be debatable (in other words, another person should be able to disagree with it), so if your question does not lead to a debatable answer, you haven’t found a good enough question for an argument (For example, the answer to the question “Who is Arjuna’s charioteer in Bhagavad Gita?” is “Krishna,” and no one will disagree about that).
Some instruction in how to do a close reading: http://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/how-do-close-reading
Works Cited:
Kain, Patricia. “How to do a close reading.” Harvard College Writing Center. Harvard U, 1998. Web. 21 Sep. 2014.