Author Archives: JSylvor
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ENG2850 – FINAL EXAM
English 2850 KMWA
Professor Jennifer Sylvor
Spring 2021
FINAL EXAM
Please compose your response to this final as a Word Document or Google Doc, give the file a name with the format: Your Name, ENG2850 Final Exam, and share it with me at [email protected] by midnight (11:59 pm) on Tuesday, May 25th. Late submissions will receive no credit.
Read the instructions in their entirety before you begin to work on this final exam. You are welcome to consult your notes from the course and all the texts we’ve read, but you are NOT allowed to do any internet research while completing this project. Use of outside sources will result in a grade of F on the exam.
Plan to spend 2-3 hours on this exam (including thinking time). Be sure to proofread your work carefully before sharing it with me. If you have questions about any part of this exam, please message me via Slack or email me at [email protected].
Final Exam: Propose a Mini-Course
Your task is as follows:
Drawing on the list of works we’ve read this semester (available on your syllabus), please design and propose a “Mini-Course”. This mini-course will bring together a selection of readings from our syllabus, but will focus on a particular topic or theme that is of interest to you. Coming up with your theme will be the key step in completing this assignment. You will need to identify some component or issue that you have encountered at several different points in your reading for this course and construct your proposal around this idea. [Your idea might be a particular element you’ve noticed in your reading (i.e. railroad travel) or a persistent question (i.e. what happens when we die?) I have deliberately chosen examples that wouldn’t work for our particular reading list because I don’t want to render any ideas off-limits, but I hope you get the idea!] Your course proposal must contain the following components:
–Course Title: Your course title should be creative and inviting and should let us know what the focus of your course is.
–Course Description: In this one paragraph course description, articulate the subject that your mini-course will explore and lay out the central questions that you will be exploring in the course. Your description should be as specific, detailed, and engaging as possible.
–Annotated Reading List: Select 5 texts from the semester as the reading for your mini-course. Write a thoughtful paragraph for each text in which you explain your rationale for including this text, offer a quotation from the text that illustrates how the text is connected to the topic of your mini-course, and provide at least three discussion questions you might ask about the text in the context of your course. List your texts in the order you think they should be read for your course. You don’t have to follow our chronological organization. Feel free to comment on the logic of the sequencing of the readings, if you think that is important to the effectiveness of the course.
–Wild Card: Add a 6th text of your choosing to your reading list. This text should NOT come from our syllabus. It should be a text that you have encountered elsewhere that you think would work with your theme and be a good addition to your reading list. This text could be a written text, or it could be a film, a tv show, a song, a painting, a photograph, a meme…. This is totally up to you. Don’t be afraid to be creative. Compose a paragraph in which you describe your wild card text and explain how it is connected to the subject of your mini-course. Place your “Wild Card” text in the spot on your reading list where you think it would be most effective.
–The Pitch: In the final paragraph of your course proposal, make a “pitch” for your course. What would you say to convince a fellow student to enroll in this course?
Your final exam will be judged by the following criteria:
–Have you followed all the instructions and completed the assignment exactly as instructed?
–Have you come up with a creative and engaging course?
–Does your course make sense, given the texts you’ve selected?
–How thoughtfully does your course description reflect your engagement with our reading over the semester?
–Does your Wild Card add to and complement your choices?
–How successful is your “pitch” at selling your idea to prospective students?
Assignments – Week #15
- Final Zoom Session: We will be holding our final Zoom session of the semester on Monday, May 17th. We will be discussing Isabel Allende’s “And of Clay Are We Created” and wrapping up the semester! This is a mandatory session.
- Isabel Allende, “And of Clay are We Created” – Allende’s story, based on a real-life volcanic eruption that took place in Colombia in 1985, takes a clear-eyed look at how we process disaster and its attendant human suffering. In a brief (300-400 word) response, connect your reading of “And of Clay are We Created” to your own life experience, perhaps focusing on the pandemic or thinking about other disasters that have occurred during your lifetime. Some questions worth pursuing might be: How do we connect or respond to suffering – whether nearby or far away? What role do screens play in our experience of this pandemic or of other disasters? What do they make possible, and what do they obstruct? What role do politicians and government have in managing disasters? What role do the media play in how we experience tragedies? Please refer to specific elements of Allende’s story in formulating your response. Please share your response on the blog by May 17th.
- Final Essays: As you know, your essays are due on Wednesday, May 19th by midnight. Please submit your finished essay to me by sharing it as a google doc with [email protected]. If you are intending to share any materials with me while working on the essay, please be aware that Monday would be the last day to get any feedback from me!
- Office Hours: Because of our final class, I will not be holding my regular office hour on Monday. Please reach out to me via email or Slack if you would like to make an appointment to meet with me or if you have any questions as you complete these final weeks of the semester.
- Final Exam: As I announced earlier, your final exam will be posted to the blog by 8 am on Monday, May 24th and will be due by the end of the day on Tuesday, May 25th. Because of the tight turnaround to submit your final grades, I will not be accepting any late submissions of the final exam, so plan accordingly.
- Course Evaluations:. If you haven’t already done so, please take a few minutes to complete your course evaluation for English 2850. Student feedback is important to me!!! (Rest assured that I will not see your evaluations until after I have submitted my final grades.)
Final Essay – Organization and Structure
How does one organize an essay about two different texts?
To begin, let me state the obvious: Before you begin to draft your essay, you MUST have a plan! It doesn’t matter whether your plan is a traditional outline or just a list of body paragraph ideas, but you need to sketch out the structure of your essay before you begin to write.
When I write a paper, I start by collecting the “textual evidence” that I want to use (all the quotations and examples from the text that address my question). Then I sort the evidence into different paragraphs, based on the idea that each piece of evidence illustrates or supports. Then I decide what order of paragraphs would be most effective. This means that before I begin writing my first draft I already know what idea each body paragraph will be exploring, what textual evidence I will be including in each body paragraph, and what order I will be presenting my ideas in.
For your final essays, you have two different possible paths for organizing your body paragraphs: The Sequential Option and The Alternating Option. I describe both below. The alternating option is slightly more challenging to execute. It works best when you discover that your texts are very closely aligned and that the ideas you have about one text hold true for the other text as well. Do not “mix and match.” Choose one of these structures, and stick with it! These examples each have three ideas. I just stopped at three because that was enough to make my point; I would imagine that you would have at least three ideas for each of the texts you’re writing about. By “ideas,” I mean claims about the text that respond to your over-arching question. Each of these ideas gets its own body paragraph. You will notice that in both options, only the introduction and conclusion discuss the two texts together in a single paragraph. Each body paragraph focuses on a single text.
The Sequential Option
1.Introduction: Lays out your question in relation to both Text A and Text B
2. Text A – Idea #1
3. Text A – Idea #2
4. Text A – Idea #3
5. Text B – Idea #1
6. Text B – Idea #2
7. Text B- Idea #3
8. Conclusion – Brings together Texts A and B, recaps the argument you have made in the body of your paper, and provides an answer to the “so what?” question. What are the implications of what you have shown us in this essay? What do we learn from it?
The Alternating Option
1.Introduction – Lays out your question in relation to both Text A and Text B
2. Text A – Idea #1
3. Text B – Idea #1
4. Text A – Idea #2
5. Text B – Idea #2
6. Text A – Idea #3
7. Text B- Idea #3
8. Conclusion – Brings together Texts A and B, recaps the argument you have made in the body of your paper, and provides an answer to the “so what?” question. What are the implications of what you have shown us in this essay? What do we learn from it?
Borowski, “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen”
Please respond to two of the following questions. Remember to compose your answers in complete sentences and to ground your ideas in specific details from the text where appropriate. Your responses should be posted by Tuesday, May 11th.
- What did you learn from this story that you did not previously know about life in Nazi concentration camps?
- This story can be described as a kind of “initiation story” for the narrator. How is he changed or transformed by the events of the narrative?
- Describe an example of dehumanization in the text. What about this moment made a particularly strong impression on you? Why?
- A tall, grey-haired woman who has just arrived on the “transport” whispers, “My poor boy,” to our narrator. What does she mean?
- “Are we good people?” asks our narrator. What is this exchange about? What do you think?
- Explain the significance of the story’s title, “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen.” What seems strange about it?
Assignments – Week #14
–Office Hours: I will be holding my regular office hours on Monday. Please feel free to stop by if there is anything you’d like to discuss. You can sign up HERE to make an appointment or just drop in!
–Borowski, “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” :
- Please take a look at the Borowski group’s presentation. In the comments section on their post, either share something you learned about the subject, make a comment, or ask a question.
- I have recorded some thoughts about the context and content of Borowski’s short story. You can find the recording HERE using the Passcode: D^%zWNp3. In a comment on this post, please share one thing that you took away from my remarks.
- In a separate post, I have shared some questions about “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen.” Please post your responses by Tuesday, May 11th. Feel free to draw on information or ideas from the presentation or my video in formulating your responses.
–Salih, “The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid” : We will be discussing this story on Wednesday, May 12th in class. Please be sure to have read the story before our Zoom call! In a separate post, please respond to the following question: What do you think Tayeb Salih’s story is ultimately saying about the relationship between tradition and modernity? Please use concrete details from the text to illustrate your response and share your thoughts on the blog by Sunday, May 16th.
–Final Essays : By now, I should have heard from you about the question you are exploring in your final essay. If I haven’t yet heard from you, you should be reaching out to me immediately. If I asked you to revise or clarify your question, don’t forget to get back to me. If I gave you the “green light,” you should be moving forward with the essay – first, by going back through both texts to collect the “textual evidence” you will be using in the body of your essay and then by creating some kind of outline or plan for your essay. Only when those two steps have been completed should you begin writing your first draft. I am happy to look at your work at any step along the way, so feel free to reach out to me with outlines, partial drafts, completed drafts, etc…. You can do this via email or during office hours.
–Kafka Presentation: I invite you to take a look at the video shared by the Kafka group this week. Using their sources as a jumping off point, you may want to look at some of the ways that Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” has been interpreted by filmmakers, stage actors, and visual artists.
–May 17th – Last Day of Classes: On May 17th, we will be holding our final Zoom class. Even though it is a Monday, plan on being there to discuss our final text, ask questions about your essays and final exam, and say our goodbyes.
Assignments – Week #13
- Kafka, The Metamorphosis:. This week’s reading is one of my favorites!!! You can find “The Metamorphosis” in Vol. F of your anthology. Please join our Zoom on Wednesday prepared to share your thoughts about what this mysterious text is all about.
- Choose two of the questions listed below to respond to, and share your responses in a separate blog post. For each response, please be sure to provide concrete textual evidence to support and illustrate your ideas. Responses should be shared by Wednesday, May 5th.
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- How is Gregor’s family transformed in the wake of his metamorphosis?
- Do you think that Gregor is more powerful BEFORE or AFTER his metamorphosis? Explain your response.
- Discuss the theme of food and eating. What role does it play in “The Metamorphosis”?
- At the end of the second section of the story, Gregor’s father pelts him with apples. What do you think this episode is about?
- Gregor emerges from his room one last time when he hears his sister playing her violin for the lodgers. What is the significance of this scene? What meaning does music hold for Gregor here?
- Ultimately, what do you think Gregor’s metamorphosis means? What does it mean to be transformed into a giant bug?
- Explain your understanding of Gregor’s death. How/why does he ultimately die?
- Look at the final paragraph of the story. How does it shape or alter our understanding of the text?
3. Essay #2 – In a separate post, I have shared your final essay assignment. Please read the post carefully, and use the “Comments” feature on that post to share an observation, question, or concern about this assignment. We will have a chance to discuss the assignment during our class on Wednesday. Note that the first step in this assignment is coming up with your own essay topic, which must fall loosely within the broad parameters of individual vs. society I outlined in the prompt. Email me your proposed topic in the form of a question no later than Friday, May 7th.
4. Office Hours – Sign up to meet with me HERE.
Essay #2
- Question Due: no later than Friday, May 7th, submitted via email to [email protected].
- Essays Due: Wednesday, May 19th, shared with [email protected] as a Google Doc by midnight.
- 5-6 pages typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins
Essay Prompt: Drawing on any two readings we’ve read over the semester, consider the complicated relationship between the individual and society as it’s explored in the works we’ve read. What issues emerge when society’s demands are not in line with the desires of the individual? How do the authors we’ve studied see that struggle?
This is a broad subject, so you will need to narrow your scope in order to construct a tightly focused analytical essay.
Step One: Submit your topic to me in the form of a question. Your written topic (to be submitted by Friday, May 7th) should show how you’ve adapted the broad issue of the individual and society to suit the particular texts you’re discussing. For example, you might choose to think about the issue in terms of gender and focus your attention on the conflict between societal demands and individual desires as they relate to women in two of the texts you’ve read. (This is just one example; we could come up with many more!) Formulate your topic in the form of a question you are asking about the two texts you’ve chosen.
One strategy you may find useful for coming up with your topic is as follows:
–What two texts do you want to write about?
–What area of overlap do you see between the two texts?
–What are you asking about the two texts?
–Once you’ve identified the question you’re asking about your two texts, be sure that your question is not a “yes or no” or “either/or” question and that the question you are asking will require analysis, rather than a simple description of what happens in the texts.
You may choose your texts from anywhere in the syllabus up to and including “The Metamorphosis.” However you may not write about the text you wrote about in your first paper of the semester. Like your first essay, this paper is a close textual analysis, based on your own thinking about the texts we’ve studied. DO NOT CONSULT ANY SECONDARY SOURCES IN THE PROCESS OF WRITING THIS PAPER!!!
Once you have submitted your question, you will receive a response to your email. If the response asks you to further refine or revise your question, you will need to send me a follow-up email with the changes I’ve suggested. Once your topic is “good to go,” the email response from me will conclude, “Good luck with the essay!” This means you are ready to start collecting quotations, putting together an outline, and drafting your essay!
Welcome to the 20th Century and an Introduction to Literary Modernism
As promised, I have recorded a short lecture about Literary Modernism, our next unit. Hopefully, this will give you a fuller picture of what is going on in intellectual history in the early 20th century and how that might affect the kind of artistic work being created.
Please watch the video using this LINK as well as the Passcode: ?Ste%H1r
Once you have watched the video, please make a comment on this post, sharing one observation that made an impression on you from the lecture or one thought that you have in response to it. Please share your comments by Wednesday, April 28th.
Assignments – Week #12
1.Read T.S. Eliot’s long poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” As I mentioned last week, I would like us to give Hypothes.is another try. Please access the poem HERE and as you read, use Hypothes.is to make notes, ask questions, record the meanings of any unfamiliar words, and add anything other thoughts or connections that occur to you as you are reading. In order to annotate the text and share your annotations with our class, you need to first sign in to Hypothes.is, then select ENG2850 from the pull-down menu (The alternative is “Public”). You may also enjoy hearing Eliot read his poem aloud, which you can do HERE. Please make 4-6 annotations before we discuss the poem on Wednesday 4/28 during our Zoom call.
2.Choose a moment in the poem that seems to you to be crying out for more extensive explication and analysis. This could be a passage that you find really challenging, or it could be a passage that you feel you already have some insight into. I would recommend choosing a passage of 2-4 lines. Offer a detailed analysis of your passage, including the following:
-copy the lines you are analyzing, and be sure to identify their line numbers.
-explain the literal meaning of the passage.
-what made you choose this passage?
-what words, terms, or names did you need to look up? What do they mean?
-what symbolism, imagery, or other poetic devices is Eliot employing in these lines?
-how do these lines connect to the central concerns of the poem as a whole?
-what do you still not understand about your passage?
-what resources (if any) did you consult in order to complete this assignment? My preference would be that you rely on. your own native intelligence and curiosity to complete this assignment, but if you do consult any outside sources, they must be acknowledged appropriately. (Remember that any time you offer an idea that you found in another source, whether you quote from that source or not, you must include a parenthetical citation identifying your source. Failure to do so is plagiarism, a serious academic offense. Consult me if you have questions about this!)
Please post this assignment (as a free-standing blog post) by Friday, April 30th.
3.Introduction to Literary Modernism – Please stay tuned for a brief video I recorded introducing the next major aesthetic movement we will be exploring (Literary Modernism) and saying a few words about the beginning of the 20th Century. My original lecture did not record properly, so I will be re-recording and posting this, hopefully by Friday evening, April 23rd.
4. Slight Schedule Change: If you have been following along on our syllabus, you will note that I have deviated slightly from the reading schedule listed on the syllabus. This coming week, we are only reading T.S. Eliot. The following week (5/3 and 5/5), we will be reading and discussing Kafka, “The Metamorphosis.” It is a longer text, so you might want to begin reading it now, while our reading load is modest. After Kafka, we will be reading Borowski’s “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” ( May 10th), Salih’s “The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid” (May 12th), and Allende’s “And of Clay are We Created” (May 17th)
5. Any Questions? Please feel free to reach out to me via email or Slack if you have questions about any of this. We are approaching the end of the semester, and I don’t want you to fall behind or lose your momentum as life gets increasingly busy. You can sign up for office hours HERE.
Assignments – Week #11
-Our reading and assignments this week are quite manageable, so this is a good week to catch up on any assignments you’ve missed.
-Read Rabindranath Tagore’s short story “Punishment” (in Volume E of your Norton Anthology). Think about how you might establish a connection between Tagore’s story and another work we’ve read this semester. You may see a stylistic issue that joins the two texts, a character who faces similar issues, or textual elements that differ from each other in important ways; the type of connection you identify is entirely up to you! In a blog post of 300-400 words, explore the connection(s) you see between the two texts. Please be sure to include quotations from both texts in your response. Your post should be shared by Wednesday, April 21st
–Tagore’s Background and Context – In preparation for our conversation about “Punishment”, please either read the introduction to this work in the Norton Anthology or do your own Google-ing about Rabindranath Tagore and, in a comment on this post, please share one piece of information that you think is important or interesting to help us contextualize his work. Please read through any comments that precede yours. You may not repeat something someone else has already posted!!! Share your item before our Zoom class on Wednesday.
–Office Hours: Sign up HERE
–Hypothes.is. Next week, you will have an assignment that will require you to use Hypothes.is. If you haven’t yet been able to use this application successfully, please take time this week to figure it out. Start by following the instructions under the “Technology” tab above and in the post where I first asked you to use it. The easiest way to use Hypothes.is is to make it an extension on your Chrome browser.
