Other than class participation, possible pop quizzes, and the details of how you and group will distribute and coordinate work, all of the assignments for this course are listed here. I have included the descriptions, instructions, and grading rubrics for each assignment as well. The assignments in this course are involved and specific, so please make sure you read ALL of the instructions more than once.
Overview of Assignments:
*Readings [introductory essays, six novels, six essays, a packet of poems, and blog posts]
*Blog Postings [four total]
*The Frankenstein Papers: F1 paper [4 pages] or F2 paper [4 pages]
*Close Reading Based Analytical Paper [4-5 pages]
*Creative Imitation Project [1-4 pages]
*Final (Group) Hood Project [Includes group-authored introduction, annotated bibliography, one F1, one F2, three close readings papers, at least 2 primary texts, and Individual (1-2 page) reflections]
Formatting Note: All written assignments for this course should be turned in as Microsoft Word documents. The assignment should be double spaced, 1-inch margins and 12 point Times New Roman font with page numbers and your whole name listed in the header. Exceptions include blog posts, and the final formatting for the group projects, which have restrictions in their formatting according to the WordPress site.
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The Hood Project
This class is an experiment. It is an experiment in whether or not studying literature for, by, and about Young Adults can be an artistic and intellectual way of thinking through our contemporary moment in which issues of race, class, gender, religion, and sexuality are constantly being worked out through our anxieties about “juvenile monsters.” The purpose of this end project is to provide a way to engage a larger audience on the themes, history, and questions we have explored throughout the semester. We want to create something that can last even after the class and that has the potential to be built upon. To this end The Hood Project will take the format of a journal on adolescence, growth, and monstrosity. Like a journal we will organize several special issues which explore some particular theme or topic within this question about the relationship between adolescence and monstrosity. While The Hood Project will take the organizational structure of an online journal, I am asking us to think liberally about what a journal can do. Part of the goal with this project and this class is to make connections between history and present and between literature and “real.” The lessons and assignments you undertake in this class are all meant to help you think about the way literature can help us explore the narratives we tell ourselves about the world and the way we imagine ideas of monstrosity, transformation, liminality, and marginalization particularly as those ideas relate to young peoples. The hope is that these issues will not only provide original thought and analysis but also references, historical background, pieces for reflection, and where possible documentation and ideas about ways for folks to further engage these ideas.
There will be seven groups of five. Each group will pick its own area of specialization. The hope is that the group will pick those focus areas by the end of the second week, so that group members might keep that theme in mind as they write their papers throughout the semester. The end product will not be a simple portfolio of everyone’s work. Everyone will contribute one single-authored piece, which they will revise for the final issue. The group will produce a group authored introduction. The introduction will present the theme. It will contextualize that theme within the larger conversation of the class and the experiment of the Hood Project. It will also posit some sort of claim about that theme and explain how the individual pieces support or align with that claim. Each issue will also include a creative piece, links to three primary texts, an annotated bibliography (in addition to a work cited section), and some call to action section.
There are four class periods reserved for group meetings. Two of those meetings are the last two classes of the semester. The hope is that you will be able to meet in the computer lab so you will be able to actually spend time putting stuff on line. When the schedule permits, I will try to leave 5-10 minutes during some class times for you to check in with your group, but you should find ways to communicate with your group (i.e. email, Facebook, GoogleDocs, text) so that you can coordinate out of the classroom as well.
Each student is individually responsible for submitting (as part of the group assignment):
*Revising (to improve and to better speak to the group theme) either an F1, F2, or the close reading-based analysis paper.
*A project self-evaluation paper to be submitted to professor. (1-2 pages)
*The Group Evaluation Worksheet
Each group is responsible for submitting as a whole:
*A group-authored introduction (3-5 pages)
*A work cited page that provides complete and accurately formatted citations for every source consulted in any part of the issue.
*An Annotated Bibliography for further readings. (Must have at least 8 entries; at least 2 historical references; at least 3 scholarly references; at least 4 creative text [literature or other art texts])
*At least 3 primary texts related to the theme/question (ex. a documentary clip on teenage prostitutes, an article on youth gang violence, or the court proceedings from the grand jury Darren Wilson trial). Each primary text should be accompanied by a 1-2 paragraph summary.
*3 close-reading based textual analysis papers relevant to the theme.
*A thematically linked F1 paper and an F2 paper
*At least one creative piece.
*Some call to action section – some place where you enable readers who are inspired by the thoughts presented to find a way to keep engaging. This may be by foregrounding a group that already acts around these issues or by giving points for active engagement or by offering lesson plans or creative assignments.
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Project Requirement Overview:
1-Revised Single Authored Papers (1 from each person in the group; see details below)
2-Primary Texts + Description papers (amount varies; see details below)
3-Creative Piece
4-Group Authored Introduction
5-Group Authored Annotated Bibliography
6-Group Created Call to Action
7-Collective Work Cited Page
Every group project regardless of the number of people in your group must include the following: 1 group-authored introduction; at least 1-creative piece; 1 work cited page; and some sort of call to action or aspect of your site that asks the reader to actively engage rather than just consume information.
Not all groups are the same size. Here are the modified final project requirements according to the size of your group:
5 person Group: 1 F1 paper; 1 F2 paper; 3 Close Reading papers; at least 3 primary text each accompanied by a 1 page double spaced description; and an annotated bibliography with at least 8 entries (2 historical references; 2 scholarly references; 2 creative text [literature or other art texts]; and 2 up to you.)
4 person Group: 2 F-papers (either F1 or F2); 2 Close Reading papers; at least 3 primary text each accompanied by a 1 page double spaced description; and an annotated bibliography with at least 6 entries (1 historical references; 2 scholarly references; 1 creative text [literature or other art texts]; and 2 up to you.)
3 person Group: 1 F-paper; 2 Close Reading papers; at least 2 primary text each accompanied by a 1-page, double-spaced description; and an annotated bibliography with at least 5 entries (1 historical references; 2 scholarly references; 1 creative text [literature or other art texts]; and 1 up to you.)
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Hood Project Grading Rubrics
Individual Contribution
This includes primarily the strength of your revised single-authored contribution but also if in your self-reflection and in the group reflection it becomes clear that you had a heavy part in authoring another aspect of the issue, I will keep that in mind.
Group Participation
I evaluate your group participation by assessing your self-evaluation, group evaluation, and my own observations.
Issue Quality
That grade will be based on 1) whether you include all parts of the assignment 2) whether there is a sense of cohesiveness between the points 3) the cleanness of the issue (in language and presentation) and 4) on the strength of the introduction (i.e. its ability to synthesize close reading, history, creative response, and scholarship in order to promote a compelling and thoughtful claim and its ability to clearly ready the reader for the various parts of the issue). Everyone in the group will have the same issue-grade.
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Readings
It goes without saying that you should do all the readings. After the first two weeks of the course you will find that there are six novels and a packet of poems. For each novel there will also be an accompanying scholarly essay.
While our discussions are ongoing, most novels have three class days dedicated to discussing that novel. I expect that you will have completed the entire work by the first day we are scheduled to discuss the text. The first day of our discussions though may include a lot more lecture than discussion in the event you find yourself hustling to finish up the last few pages.
Frankenstein is by far our longest and most “difficult” text. I have reserved more class time for this text, and I have intentionally waited to have our discussion start until the third week of classes. While there are readings for the second (first full) week of classes, I suggest you start reading Frankenstein as soon as you can. Note: the first 50 pages of the novel are the hardest to get through. Second Note: If you make it through Frankenstein, you will do fine with the rest of the reading.
Similarly: A lot of the assignments for this course, require that you write on something potentially before we get to that text or maybe right when we get to the text. You should mark in your calendars ahead of time the texts that you will need to start reading earlier. If you wait, to read it until it pops up on the syllabus, you may be in trouble.
Final Note: Reading your classmates’ posts is part of the reading. I reserve the right to give pop quiz on any aspect of any of the reading should I think it in the class’s best interest.
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Blog Assignments
All blog posts should be between 250 and 450 words, and they should be posted at least 24 hours before the class the post is assigned to on the syllabus. Each post should include three tags: 1) your blog group (i.e. Group A or Group B) 2) the name of the particular blog assignment (i.e. Comparative Blog or Close Reading Blog) 3) a tag of your choosing that provides some sense of your topic (i.e. the name of a character or the name of a theme like alienation).
Summary Post:
You should provide a brief but thorough summary of the text(s) assigned to your group. A good summary will at least 1) reference to the type of text (i.e. scholarly article, news clip, etc) 2) articulate the piece’s central claim and/or main goal 3) explain the primary (2-3) ways in which the author goes about achieving that goal and 4) any particularly special thing the piece does related to the interests of those for whom you’re providing the summary. In our case that means anything the piece might offer us in our thinking about the relationship between adolescences and monstrosity.
Comparative Post:
In this post you should compare some part of the narrative of Frankenstein with a contemporary (within your parent’s lifetime) portrayal of young people as monstrous. Your post should clearly highlight the part of Frankenstein (quote actual text) that you use to think through this contemporary illustration. You should introduce the contemporary text clearly (proper citation) and where impossible include a link or embed the video, photo, or actual text. You should then include 2-4 sentences comparing and contrasting the two texts.
Further Reading Post:
In this blog, you should begin to reflect on our conversations throughout the semester. You should pick some theme, moment, idea, etc. in the readings for the week, and you should make a claim about how that element works (fits, challenges, works with) any (or as many) of the following as you like: discussion of the other literature we have read throughout the course, contemporary depictions of adolescence as monstrous, historical ideas about monstrous youths. After making this claim (in one to three sentences), you should then suggest three (properly cited) further readings. At least one reading should be a piece of art or literature that could be considered to be by, for, or about young adults. At least one should be a peer-reviewed scholarly article which relates to the theme/idea (if not also the text) your claim addresses. Note: You do not have to annotate your bibliography in this post, but you will for the final project, so it might be worth it to write a sentence or two about how you see the bibliography you provide aiding the idea you introduce.
For example:
When we placed in context with the other readings this semester, particular A Lesson Before Dying, the repeated detail of the fast food in Monster becomes intensely political and intensely important to framing the main characters as a potentially monstrous figure. Food—what we consume and how we consume it—has been a subtle but very important part of the way in which the texts we have looked at portray their youths as outsiders, destructive, and monstrous. For further reading (note the formatting is off because of WordPress):
- Henderson, Laretta. “‘Ebony Jr!’ and ‘Soul Food’: The Construction of Middle-Class African American Identity through the Use of Traditional Southern Foodways” MELUS. 32:4 Food in Multi-Ethnic Literature (Winter 2007) 81-97. Accessed on JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30029832
- The article discusses the way in which black writers have intentionally tried to portray a stable sense of home and citizenship through portrayals of particular foods and meals. Ebony Jr! is an youth magazine.
- Sinclair, April. Coffee Will Make You Black. Chicago: Harper Perennial, 2007.
- While the novel itself doesn’t focus on food, the novel is very much about the way blackness is a seemingly monstrous element in this youth’s coming-of-age. The title encapsulates that struggle by way of a metaphor of consumption that fits with the claim. Somehow drinking/consuming coffee contributes directly to making one more black and one more monstrous.
- Sapphire. Push. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1996.
Novel features the black protagonist and other black characters consuming unhealthy and large quantities of food. It presents those portrayals as part of the horror of this teenager’s monstrous black and poor existence.
Close Reading Post:
In this post, you should practice close reading using one or both of the close reading methods I presented in class. The most important part of this blog is that you NARROW YOUR SCOPE. You should pick either the tiniest thing to focus on. Perhaps you focus on just 2 sentences in A Lesson Before Dying. Or perhaps you focus on the detail of blonde hair in Frankenstein. It’s hard to know what constitutes a minor and/or focused moment. 2 sentences in a poem would be a lot. And perhaps 4 short sentences in Frankenstein might be shorter than one long sentence in The Bluest Eye. Or perhaps even though there are only a few blonde hair women in Frankenstein, there is so much attention and meaning imparted to those moments, it is too much to do in one post, and you need to focus on just the use of yellow and white and light colors in the description of the village home in which we first meet Elizabeth. You are not writing a paper in this blog, though you may use what you write in the post to help you write your close reading paper. The point of this blog is for you to practice engaging at a very close level how the language of the text works. After you have identified your small portion, you should posit some idea about what that small moment is doing in the scene (if not the whole novel). You should illustrate this claim by explaining how you are seeing the details of the text work in such a way as to get this idea.
Blog Post Grading Rubrics
Contributing to Dialogue
Did you post on topic and on time? Is the language of your post readable?
Assignment
Did you follow all the details of the post assignment?
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The Frankenstein Papers (F1 & F2)
The First Five Steps
The Frankenstein Paper is a very involved paper assignment. The first thing you need to make sure you do is read all the instructions listed here in the beginning of the semester. The second thing you need to do is listen to my explanation of the project (and you should take notes to my explanation). The third thing you should do is ask clarifying questions about the assignment if you have any. The fourth thing you should do is mark a date on your calendar (probably at least two weeks before hand) for your particular due dates. Fifth, when that date arrives, you should reread these instructions before starting on your project.
Basic Requirements
The Frankenstein Assignment is a combination of 2 different paper assignments (F1 and F2), each with two components and each about 4 pages long. Important: In keeping with the notion of monstrosity as an amalgamation of parts, everyone will not do both papers. Roughly a third to half the class will do the first Frankenstein paper (F1), and the rest of the class will do the second Frankenstein paper (F2) at various points in the semester. F1 will be due after our Frankenstein section. We will then have a cadre of students turn in a F2 paper before we begin each new novel. Even though you will not be writing one of each kinds of paper, you will be involved in the revision of both papers. For each final group project must include one F1 paper and one F2 paper. Every group will have at least one person who did an F1 paper in the group. For groups who have more than one F1 paper, you will choose which F1 paper you wish to use. While ultimately it is up to the group to decide how to handle the revision and editing process, I suggest that at the very least you have a group read and a group workshop time. At the end of the day everyone in the group will get the same grade for the quality of the assignments in the project regardless of who initially wrote the piece.
General Description
The monster in Frankenstein is one of the most famous literary monsters of all time. Biography tells us that Mary Shelly’s text was conceived of as a haunting story, but as with other great gothic and horror tales, Frankenstein does more than scare and thrill. It also interrogates the nature of our fears. It asks questions what we can imagine and what we cannot. It examines the underlying beliefs that we take for granted and/or regard as sacred, and it hypothesizes about what happens when a belief is shaken and someone commits a taboo, opening up the whole order of things, the world even, to a volatile and scary place. A place of monsters. Indeed from our 21st century position, we may be well poised to appreciate the novel as thinking rather than as merely shocking. Having been exposed to numerous adaptations of Frankenstein (many of them visual and by far more graphic than the book) and living in an age where cloning and genetic engineering are realities, we may not find Frankenstein to be scary or as shocking as Shelly’s 19th century readers. We then may be able to really read Shelly’s text as a theory of the monstrous and the monster. As this course endeavors to think about the relationship between adolescence and ideas of monstrosity, we begin this course by considering whether one of the must sustained contemplations on monstrosity, Frankenstein, may help us articulate and think through the idea of monstrosity and its potential relationship to age, development, and adolescence.
Approaching a literary text (or any art work) as theory making isn’t the same thing as reading it as a case study. A case study is when you read a particular situation and then posit the conclusions about that situation as indicative of the normal or as challenging the normal. Case studies presume that you are talking about a real life event situation and that your conclusions purport statements about the reality of things. While there is a way in which scholars read literature as case-studies, in this class we will focus on what literature does best, which is to help us explore and challenge the ways we imagine beliefs, peoples, and the world. Frankenstein is not a true story, so we will not be reading Victor Frankenstein as an example of the problem of an all-science curriculum. We can however read the story as thinking through the problems of a narrow education or of blind ambition. Our conclusions though will be about the way we imagine and the way we think about these things rather than about the thing itself.
The novel makes worlds, and in doing so it offers us theories (ways to think about the world(s) and things in and beyond the world). The text rarely ever says “Here’s a theory,” but it creates characters and situations, illuminates particular details and images, and enlists particular narrative devices and language plays that allow you to deduce (infer) a particular idea or position from the text. What you infer is your interpretation, but it is not an interpretation based loosely on your sense or distant associations. It is an interpretation derived by your awareness of things happening (things you can point out and describe) in the text. Of course your awareness of what things are happening is both a product of how the text is written and the knowledge you bring to the text, which enables you to see and not see different possible ways the text is working.
By including Shelly’s text (and by starting with it), I have already made for us an important argument about what this text is doing and what kinds of theories it might offer us. This same text could be (and undoubtedly has been) the central text for a science and literature class, gothic literature course, a women’s literature class, or an education in literature class. Indeed science, gender, and education are all topics we may discuss, but I propose in this class that we regard this text as theorizing about the relationship between youth, development, and monstrosity. If I were deducing this theory solely from the text, I would support my argument by highlighting the text’s repeated attention to the importance of childhood and the nature of youth, development, and entering society. If I were bringing a particular background and knowledge to the text in order to help me interpret these observations more pointedly, I might make reference to Shelly’s biographical connections to the narrative (i.e. the fact that she was quite young when she wrote it and that she has remarked the novel as moving her from childhood to adulthood), but I might also make reference to historical information that isn’t just about the author’s personal life but rather about the setting, objects, persons, places, and/or political contexts around and within which the story takes place (i.e. I might tell a history of particular English/Irish relations in early 19th century in order to help us think more about what might be at stake in the fact that Frankenstein is accused of murder by the Ireland).
F1- Paper
In this first assignment I ask you to think about how the literary can help us think through the real. Ultimately the assignment requires that you identify in (or infer from) Frankenstein some theory about youth, adolescence, growth, development, monstrosity, or a related theme. I then ask you to use (apply) this theory to help us think through a contemporary depiction of the monstrous adolescence. This assignment has two parts:
In this first part you will use specific parts of the novel in order to pose a theory about adolescence and monstrosity.
In order to pose a theory, you need specific textual evidence to show us how you are deducing this theory from the novel. If you do not show where in the text your ideas are coming from, you cannot receive full credit. The best papers will be very specific in their claims and in their use of textual evidence. This means that a good paper won’t just say that the novel purports that ambition in the young becomes monstrous (with general references to when Frankenstein is ambitious). A good paper will look specifically at how the scenes in which Frankenstein’s ambitiousness seems monstrous and take note of how the narrative always includes some description of how Frankenstein has become disconnected with nature. The good paper will walk its readers through this pattern (with specific examples), and then the good paper will posit what it is that makes connection to nature so important (in the narrative—not just to the author of the paper). You might notice that the most important part of nature is the changing of the seasons (maybe someone else might think it’s the presence of sublime beauty). The good paper will then argue that ambitions that isolate the developing youth from nature and it’s important shifts in seasons puts the developing youth at becoming monstrous. And the best paper will do all of this, but it will also offer some specific definition of what it means to be “monstrous.”
The second part of this paper requires that you use this theory to think through a contemporary (within your parents’ life time) depiction of a monstrous youth. For instance you might find an article about the Littleton shootings, which describes the youths as mostly into computers and video games and disconnected with exercise, the outdoors, or what was going on around them. You might highlight the way the same article connects this isolation from nature to the youth’s desire to pain their faces white and their nails black and to look monstrous. Your Frankenstein theory can help us take note of the fact that even though there is no solid causal connection between playing video games and painting one’s face white, the author of this article makes such a connection relying on the unspoken assumption about relationship between nature and healthy development that we can see interrogated in Frankenstein.
Important: For this part of the assignment you must choose a specific text, depicting a juvenile monster. You are not describing the event or applying the theory to prove anything about the event. What you are doing is using the theory to think about the way we think about and the way we imagine monstrous growth. Your text may be a news article, photograph, song, poem, video, etc. The only thing to keep in mind is that in the same way you had to use specific examples to derive the theory from Frankenstein, you must also use specific examples in this text to show how we can see that theory at work in this contemporary text.
Formatting: This paper should be double spaced, 1-inch margins and 12 point Times New Roman font with page numbers and your whole name listed in the footer. While there is no set rule, I imagine that you might spend 2-3 pages on establishing the theory in Frankenstein and 2-1 pages applying that theory to your reading of another contemporary text.
F1-Paper Grading Rubrics:
Argument Articulation
Do you clearly state what the theory is that you are deducing from the novel? Are you clear about how this theory helps us think through the contemporary text?
Engaging Texts
Did you use specific examples to articulate the theory you see emerging in the novel? Do you explain how those examples put together get us to the theory you see in the text? Did you use specific examples to show us how the theory applies in the contemporary text? Do you explain how we should read the quotes in a way that shows the theory at work in this contemporary text? Do you use proper citations?
Language
Do you use clear, complete, and active sentences? Do you adhere to rules of capitalization and correct punctuation? Do you spell words correctly?
Structure
Are your introduction and conclusion focused and doing more than warming up and cooling down. Do you present your points clearly and in a strong, productive order?
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F2 Paper
The first Frankenstein paper asked us to think about how literature can help us understand the ways we imagine, depict, and think about the real. In this paper we will ask how history (of real peoples, events, objects, laws, places, etc.) can give body to and help us understand what is at stake in the literary texts we read. This assignment also has two parts:
In the first part of this assignment, you will be responsible for providing a history that can help us to understand some part of the text we are reading on a deeper level. As with the other assignment, the most important part of this assignment is for you to be focused. For example if you are looking at The Bluest Eye, it is not enough for you to give a broad history of the Civil Rights; or talk about how it used to be racist way back when; or to make a medley of various Black uplift slogans. A good paper will be focused in its scope and specific in the information it relays; it will inevitably be teaching us something. If it is general enough that we could write it almost from memory or guess it or find it with only one Google search, then you have probably not done what you need to do. Instead of the whole Civil Rights, a good paper might focus on something more specific—maybe the history of bleaching creams. Depending on what you find, you may have to specify even more than that like the history of one or two people who died from using bleaching creams before 1970.
The second part of the assignment (though it doesn’t have to be second in the actual paper), you must direct your readers to the specific place in the text in which this history may give resonance to how we read the text.
For example if you write about mid-century mentally-ill youth in New York, then you might (even though Pecola is in Ohio) bring our attention to Pecola in the streets at the end of The Bluest Eye. Of course if you were writing the history on mid-century mentally-ill youths in NYC that may be huge, and your paper might need to be about one specific teen, or one specific law, or a specific social worker who took an interest in mentally-ill youth. Still you would use that history to illuminate something in the novel. Your engagement with the novel must be 1) specific. You should bring us not only to a specific scene and moment, but to specific passages. 2) You should tell us exactly what to focus on and 3) you should explain how the history changes, deepens, challenges, etc. the way we read the part of the novel to which you are calling our attention.
The tricks of this paper are historical relevance and research:
You want to make sure you research something that is historically relevant. You don’t want to be anachronistic, meaning if you are talking police violence in The Outsiders, you shouldn’t be researching Rodney King or Michael Brown. While the connection is interesting and would work for another paper, for this paper research on Rodney King would not be contemporary with the novel.
The second tricky part of this paper is the research. You should leave yourself plenty of time to modify (not totally revamp) your research topic. You may need to narrow a couple of times (most likely you will need to do so at least once). You may need to shift your topic. Maybe you started on New England teen cliques, but end up talking about underground youth gangs in the Midwest. Maybe you started with bleaching creams but because of scope and resources shift to colored contacts or hair straighteners.
I recommend picking a scene or moment in the text that you’re interested in ahead of time and letting, the places, people, setting, and objects of this part of the text guide the parameters of your research. This way you ensure that you won’t go too far away from the text and then struggle when you have to connect your research back. This way you also have various items and themes so you know how you might narrow or shift your research as necessary. You may after you develop your history switch your scene that you want to focus on, but at least this way you have an anchor point.
The most successful papers will be the ones that leave themselves time enough to explore in their research, to get lost, to be creative, and to see what’s out there before honing in one idea.
Formatting: This paper should be double spaced, 1-inch margins and 12 point Times New Roman font with page numbers and your whole name listed in the footer. Again there is no set rule, but I imagine that you would spend roughly 2.5 pages on the history and 1.5 pages showing how that history changes the way we read a specific part of the novel and then consequently the novel as a whole.
F2- Paper Grading Rubrics:
History Presentation
Do you present a clear and focused history? Do you have at least three sources? Do you clearly cite your sources? Do you use reputable sources? Is at least one of your sources a scholarly source? Do you tell/present the history in a way that clearly foregrounds the aspect of the history that you believe will affect the way we read the part of the novel you will ultimately highlight?
Engaging Text
Did you relate your history to a specific part of the novel? Do you posit an explanation of how that history deepens, changes, or challenges our understanding of how to read this part of the text (and consequently the novel as a whole)? In relaying your explanation do you specific textual evidence?
Structure
Are your introduction and conclusion focused and doing more than warming up and cooling down. Do you present your points clearly and in a strong, productive order?
Language
Do you use clear, complete, and active sentences? Do you adhere to rules of capitalization and correct punctuation? Do you spell words correctly?
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Close Reading-Based Analysis Paper
One of the goals for this class is for students to read literature for, by, and about young adults as literature (with aesthetic, intellectual, political, and imaginative value) rather than as educational tools, cultural propaganda, or merchandise. This is to say that you should be able to analyze this literature’s form and use of language just as you would analyze the literature in another literature course. You should be able to recognize the ways the text uses plot, characters, metaphors, images, narrative structures, sounds, puns, line breaks, allusions, and other devices in order to structure (and sometimes rupture) the way we imagine a particular issue, idea, moment, or theme. Another goal for this course is that you will be able to create an original thesis based on such an analysis. This close-reading based analysis paper is meant for you to demonstrate and strengthen these skills.
Importantly this paper is not a research paper. It is not a comparative paper, and it is not a summary. In this paper you should pay close attention to the literary form of a small part of a particular text, and you posit a claim about how you think we ought to read the way that small part of the text is working and ultimately how it affects (challenges, deepens, illuminates, etc.) how we should read the whole text.
In this paper you should use one or both of the close reading strategies we discussed in class. By this time you should have at least practiced using one of these methods in your close reading blog post. The key to this paper (as with all the assignments) is scope. If you are using the archeological dig method, you should only be digging at a small and focused part of the text. Probably not more than 2 pages, and it could easily be as small as a very rich paragraph. If you are using the follow the trail method, you need to be very precise about what it is you are following. You are not following all instances of childhood or regret in Frankenstein. That’s way too big. You can’t even in the amount of space you have follow all references to mountains (there are a fair amount of mountains in the novel). But perhaps you could do a more localized trail following of all the instances of losing footing or potentially falling in the mid-section of where Frankenstein is wondering about the mountains alone when he meets the monster.
Remember in both the case of archeological dig (where you analyze the way multiple devices are working together in a small section) and follow the trail (where you follow one device or one detail across a longer section), you should follow the method, making observations and connections in the text, and then posit an original interpretation—a claim based on how you see these textual elements working. Your paper though should not wait until the end to posit this claim. You should start with the claim; it will be your thesis. You should give us sense of how you will illustrate this claim for the reader, and then over several body paragraphs with clear topic sentences that introduce each point, you should move through the text, showing the evidence, and explaining how you want your reader to interpret that evidence so that they may understand your central claim.
For more information on the close reading strategies, please refer to the following handout: Close-Reading-Strategy-Clean
You should write a 4-5 page paper, in which you examine a very specific aspect of one of the texts on the syllabus. This paper should have a clear, cogent, and arguable thesis. It should have relevant subsidiary claims which are supported by close reading of the literature (its, language, devices, accompanying visuals, layout, etc.) It should be double spaced, 1-inch margins and 12 point Times New Roman font.
Close Reading-Based Analysis Paper Grading Rubrics
Argument/Perspective
Does your paper have a clearly stated central claim aka thesis? Is the scope of your paper appropriately focused? Does the material you relay in your paper relate to your stated central claim? Is the logic under-girding your argument/perspective clear, consistent, and sound?
Deal Breaker: If you do not have a clearly stated central aim (thesis where relevant), it will affect your grade AT LEAST by a letter.
Engaging Text
Do you provide relevant examples? Do you describe your examples and your particular points about each example in a manner that relays the fullness of your thinking and convincingly proves your point or illustrates your paper’s overall thesis? Do you provide relevant context and citations for your quotations and your examples? Is your reading of the primary and/or secondary text sound? (ie. Do you clearly relay the central aims of the author you’re engaging? And does the logic under-girding the way you engage that reading reflect and respect what the author is actually doing?)
Deal Breaker: If you do not have proper citations, it will affect your grade AT LEAST by a letter.
Also in argument based paper, please know: Just having an example and introducing it (while important) is not enough. If you do not also follow up your example with a detailed explanation of how you want me to interpret this example, you cannot get an A in this section.
Structure
Are your introduction and conclusion focused and doing more than warming up and cooling down. Do you have clear transitions that introduce your points and help the reader relay the individual point back to the overall thesis? Do you present your points clearly and in a strong, productive order?
Language
Do you use clear, complete, and active sentences? Do you adhere to rules of capitalization and correct punctuation? Is your spelling accurate and consistent?
Deal Breaker: Any language issue that puts you at risk of plagiarizing (i.e. incorrect use of quotation marks, not properly formatting titles of texts, misspelling author names, not including citations, etc.) will result affect your grade AT LEAST by one letter.
Deal Breaker: If I give you or the class a language comment more than twice, but you do not show a good faith effort to correct this issue in subsequent drafts and assignments, it will affect your grade by AT LEAST one letter.
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Creative Imitation Project
A good imitation requires the closest form of reading. In this assignment you will by way of replicating form explore how a particular form lends itself to thinking about and conveying ideas about adolescence and monstrosity. You have the choice of thinking through the monstrous juvenile either by writing a poem or creating a comic (or a scene of a graphic novel). This is a form driven project, which means you must use one of the texts from class as a model. If you are doing a graphic project, then American Born Chinese will be your model. If you are doing a poem, you may pick from any of the poems on the syllabus. While you are writing your own poem or creating your own graphic story, you are paying close attention to how the text from the syllabus works, and you will replicate that form [NOT THE CONTENT] as you express your own content and play with your own words and images.
Just as with any other assignment, being more focused and precise is better. For example if the first line of the poem is a metaphor, the first line of your poem should be a metaphor. But even more so, if the first line is a bodily metaphor then perhaps you might try a bodily metaphor for your first line. I do not expect that you will be able to follow every single part of the form exactly because you are not writing the same poem or making the same graphic story, and as such you might have to make some different decisions than the original. However the point of the assignment is to explore the relationship between these forms and expressing ideas of monstrosity and youth. If I see no formal relation between your piece and your model, you will not receive full credit. Because we are not all seasoned poets or artists, you will also turn in a 1-2 paragraph reflection in which you tell me what your model was (if it’s ABC then you should tell me what scene), but you should also talk about how you followed the form in your own work. The purpose of this reflection is to one help you articulate your choices and to make sure that even if your skillfulness hinders my ability to discern how you’re following the model, you can at least tell me what you were going for.
You Should Turn In:
* 1-2 paragraph reflection. [This reflection should identify the specific poem or part of ABC you used as a model and should explain your choices, meaning how you tried to follow form and where you intentionally decided to break with form and why.]
AND ONE OF THE FOLLOWING
* a 4 page graphic story = it can be a single graphic story, a comic strip, or a scene from what would be a larger graphic novel if you were to do one. [Due Wednesday April 29th at 5pm]
OR
a 4 page poem [Due Friday, May 8th at 5pm]
NOTE: That if you do the graphic project then you have an earlier due date and a later due date if you do the poem. The purpose is so that people who chose to do the poem have some time in which we talk about the poem in class before their project is due. If you are doing the poetry project, you should not wait until the last minute to start this poem.
Creative Imitation Grading Rubrics
Imitation
Do you identify a model text? Does your project follow the major formal elements of your model text? Does your project also follows some of the more minor formal elements of your model text? Do your breaks from the form of the model seem purposeful (aka in service to what it is your poem particularly wants to do)?
Project
Does your project seem complete? Does your project think through some aspect of the relationship between monstrosity and adolescence? Does your project presentation seem clean and thorough (meaning is it free of typos and does it look like it wasn’t thrown together at the last minute)?
Reflection
Does your reflection clearly explain where and how you tried to follow form and the reasons why you decided to break from the form in the places in which you do not follow the form? [note: Anything I can’t readily see from just looking at your project, I expect to be clarified in this reflection.]
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The Hood Project
This class is an experiment. It is an experiment in whether or not studying literature for, by, and about Young Adults can be an artistic and intellectual way of thinking through our contemporary moment in which issues of race, class, gender, religion, and sexuality are constantly being worked out through our anxieties about “juvenile monsters.” The purpose of this end project is to provide a way to engage a larger audience on the themes, history, and questions we have explored throughout the semester. We want to create something that can last even after the class and that has the potential to be built upon. To this end The Hood Project will take the format of a journal on adolescence, growth, and monstrosity. Like a journal we will organize several special issues which explore some particular theme or topic within this question about the relationship between adolescence and monstrosity. While The Hood Project will take the organizational structure of an online journal, I am asking us to think liberally about what a journal can do. Part of the goal with this project and this class is to make connections between history and present and between literature and “real.” The lessons and assignments you undertake in this class are all meant to help you think about the way literature can help us explore the narratives we tell ourselves about the world and the way we imagine ideas of monstrosity, transformation, liminality, and marginalization particularly as those ideas relate to young peoples. The hope is that these issues will not only provide original thought and analysis but also references, historical background, pieces for reflection, and where possible documentation and ideas about ways for folks to further engage these ideas.
There will be seven groups of five. Each group will pick its own area of specialization. The hope is that the group will pick those focus areas by the end of the second week, so that group members might keep that theme in mind as they write their papers throughout the semester. The end product will not be a simple portfolio of everyone’s work. Everyone will contribute one single-authored piece, which they will revise for the final issue. The group will produce a group authored introduction. The introduction will present the theme. It will contextualize that theme within the larger conversation of the class and the experiment of the Hood Project. It will also posit some sort of claim about that theme and explain how the individual pieces support or align with that claim. Each issue will also include a creative piece, links to three primary texts, an annotated bibliography (in addition to a work cited section), and some call to action section.
There are four class periods reserved for group meetings. Two of those meetings are the last two classes of the semester. The hope is that you will be able to meet in the computer lab so you will be able to actually spend time putting stuff on line. When the schedule permits, I will try to leave 5-10 minutes during some class times for you to check in with your group, but you should find ways to communicate with your group (i.e. email, Facebook, GoogleDocs, text) so that you can coordinate out of the classroom as well.
Each student is individually responsible for submitting (as part of the group assignment):
*Revising (to improve and to better speak to the group theme) either an F1, F2, or the close reading-based analysis paper.
*A project self-evaluation paper to be submitted to professor. (1-2 pages)
*The Group Evaluation Worksheet
Each group is responsible for submitting as a whole:
*A group-authored introduction (3-5 pages)
*A work cited page that provides complete and accurately formatted citations for every source consulted in any part of the issue.
*An Annotated Bibliography for further readings. (Must have at least 8 entries; at least 2 historical references; at least 3 scholarly references; at least 4 creative text [literature or other art texts])
*At least 3 primary texts related to the theme/question (ex. a documentary clip on teenage prostitutes, an article on youth gang violence, or the court proceedings from the grand jury Darren Wilson trial). Each primary text should be accompanied by a 1-2 paragraph summary.
*3 close-reading based textual analysis papers relevant to the theme.
*A thematically linked F1 paper and an F2 paper
*At least one creative piece.
*Some call to action section – some place where you enable readers who are inspired by the thoughts presented to find a way to keep engaging. This may be by foregrounding a group that already acts around these issues or by giving points for active engagement or by offering lesson plans or creative assignments.
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Project Requirement Overview:
1-Revised Single Authored Papers (1 from each person in the group; see details below)
2-Primary Texts + Description papers (amount varies; see details below)
3-Creative Piece
4-Group Authored Introduction
5-Group Authored Annotated Bibliography
6-Group Created Call to Action
7-Collective Work Cited Page
Every group project regardless of the number of people in your group must include the following: 1 group-authored introduction; at least 1-creative piece; 1 work cited page; and some sort of call to action or aspect of your site that asks the reader to actively engage rather than just consume information.
Not all groups are the same size. Here are the modified final project requirements according to the size of your group:
5 person Group: 1 F1 paper; 1 F2 paper; 3 Close Reading papers; at least 3 primary text each accompanied by a 1 page double spaced description; and an annotated bibliography with at least 8 entries (2 historical references; 2 scholarly references; 2 creative text [literature or other art texts]; and 2 up to you.)
4 person Group: 2 F-papers (either F1 or F2); 2 Close Reading papers; at least 3 primary text each accompanied by a 1 page double spaced description; and an annotated bibliography with at least 6 entries (1 historical references; 2 scholarly references; 1 creative text [literature or other art texts]; and 2 up to you.)
3 person Group: 1 F-paper; 2 Close Reading papers; at least 2 primary text each accompanied by a 1-page, double-spaced description; and an annotated bibliography with at least 5 entries (1 historical references; 2 scholarly references; 1 creative text [literature or other art texts]; and 1 up to you.)
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Hood Project Grading Rubrics
Individual Contribution
This includes primarily the strength of your revised single-authored contribution but also if in your self-reflection and in the group reflection it becomes clear that you had a heavy part in authoring another aspect of the issue, I will keep that in mind.
Group Participation
I evaluate your group participation by assessing your self-evaluation, group evaluation, and my own observations.
Issue Quality
That grade will be based on 1) whether you include all parts of the assignment 2) whether there is a sense of cohesiveness between the points 3) the cleanness of the issue (in language and presentation) and 4) on the strength of the introduction (i.e. its ability to synthesize close reading, history, creative response, and scholarship in order to promote a compelling and thoughtful claim and its ability to clearly ready the reader for the various parts of the issue). Everyone in the group will have the same issue-grade.