Category Archives: Writing assignments

Final creative project

Writing assignments

Due during the final exam period: Wed 5/25, 1-3pm

For your final creative project, you have a lot of leeway with what you might do, but here are the four basic tasks you need to do

  1. Analyze one of the works we have read for the rhetorical/stylistic moves that it makes, as well as its structure (Annotation will help you here).
  2. Use these observations to create your own work that is about more contemporary materials/subjects (or other materials of interest to you). For example, you might create your own Pillow Book about important events/settings in your life (like a Pillow Book about being a student at Baruch).
  3. Explain, in two pages, how you used these rhetorical moves from the original text, giving examples from your own work in comparison to the original text. What were these rhetorical moves, and how did you use them in your own work?
  4. During the final exam time itself, present a piece of your creative work (and, if time, some explanation of why you made the choices you did).

You might do this individually or as a group: for example, if you do a scene from a play, you can do this project with a few other people (no more than 4 to a group, though). If you do this individually, you’ll have about five minutes to present during the exam itself; as a group, you’ll have more.

  • Note on group work: If you work as a team, you need to provide evidence of the separate roles that you played. If, for example, you put together your own “updated version” of the Kokinshu, each person should be responsible for covering a “theme.” (the Kokinshu selections we read, for example, focused on the seasons and love, though obviously you might choose different categories).
  • It should go without saying, but: what you write in these projects should be your own work in your own words. If you are bringing in quotes or even just paraphrasing ideas from outside sources, they should be cited. I’ll say it again: even bringing in someone else’s ideas that you find online is plagiarism if you don’t cite your source (because it looks like you’re claiming that idea as your own, and not acknowledging that you got the original idea from elsewhere). Look up how to cite using MLA for texts outside the Norton: there are hundreds of sites online that can help you find the proper way to cite a source. Since you are handing this in at the end of the semester, if I catch plagiarism, I’ll just email you about it, give you the zero, and factor it into the grade; there won’t be time for you to explain yourself, and moreover, by that point you should have had time to look up what academic integrity policy at Baruch is, as well as ask me any clarifying questions.

Suggestions for what you might do (I’ll add some more in coming days, and you can come up with your own too, as long as you vet them with me).

Create your own Pillow Book: While the Pillow Book is in the genre of the “pillow,” or notebook/diary that records daily observations (so-called because it would likely be placed near one’s pillow), it includes several different kinds of entries (lists, characterizations of people, stories/anecdotes, etc) and that sometimes it seems to record actual events and sometimes it seems to embellish them. Observe this text for its rhetorical moves as a diary that records the happenings of Heian court life (at least, what Shonagon asserts is important to notice) and write your own “pillow book” that uses her rhetorical moves, style, attention to detail, etc, to describe and characterize a setting that is important to you. This setting could be Baruch college from your perspective as a student, city or suburban life from your perspective as a resident (particularly NYC life), or your neighborhood and its residents/family/friends from your perspective as a part of that community (or even as someone who feels on its outskirts sometimes!). Feel free to be creative with your setting, but be sure to use the moves that Shonagan does to write your own “pillow book.”

  • Your project should contain EACH KIND of entry Shonagan does (lists, essays on topics, diary like narratives) and you should have AT LEAST 10 entries. If you are working in a group: each person should have at least 10 entries. Note that this should reflect specific features that you find in Shonagan’s work; if it’s just a diary observing your environment in a general way, you won’t do well on this assignment.

Create your own Kokinshu: The Kokinshu, as we began to discuss, is an anthology that uses the technique of association-and-progression to organize the poetry in it (each “series” of poems sticks to one theme, and there are similarities in images between one poem to the next, yet with each poem, there are subtle changes that take us through a “progression”—from the first hints of spring to the height of spring to the fading of spring; or the first hints of a love affair to the consummation and height of the romance to its fading). Observe how this rhetorical technique works in The Kokinshu and then compile/create your own version using the association-and-progression technique. Instead of the poems in the Kokinshu, however, find other poems and arrange them according to a theme where the poems close to each other share similar phrases/words/images but that, when you zoom out, has a larger narrative with a “beginning, middle, and end” (as in the Kokinshu, where poems about the seasons and about love progress to tell a story or to take us through the seasons). You do not have to necessarily use poetry; you might also use other short works in succession. For example, you could take news snippets/Tweets about a particular event or topic, and place them in an order where each Tweet/snippet in proximity shares similar phrases or ideas, but arranged so that they show a progression of some kind (this could work particularly well with political events, as news coverage often uses short phrases to encapsulate larger ideas or topics). You can even use pieces/quotes from the Norton anthology (what we’ve read or other texts) that circle around a particular theme (like duty/right action). Be creative in your materials, but be sure to follow the rhetorical moves of the Kokinshu as you do so.

  • Note that this option might apply for The Thousand and One Nights too: you might create a “frame tale” plus some interlocking stories (this would likely be a good “group” option where each person writes a part or parts of a story, so it’s not too overwhelming a project).

Perform a scene from Sakuntala: The Norton preface to Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection notes that the play is now rarely performed, even with the revived interest in theater in India. According to the Norton, this is because “despite its remarkable survival and continuous influence over some 1,500 years, and its wide appeal to readers around the world, Kalidasa’s play seems better equipped to reveal its beauty and complexity as ‘drama’ rather than ‘theater’” (875). In other words, the play is better to be read than to be performed. Yet we did get to see a performance of it this semester, that sought to get across the emotional ups and downs of the narrative. I think, therefore, that the Norton’s assertion is something we might contest! For this option, perform a scene from Sakuntala, keeping in mind that the play, for each act, intends to depict a different rasa, or emotional state in its pure essence, by “blending” the characteristics of an emotional state with “subsidiary states” like anxiety or lovesickness and with “physical signs associated with” each emotion (873; see p. 875 for which rasa goes with each act, as well as the subsidiary emotions). Your goal is to perform this scene and embody the appropriate rasa in it, in whatever way you believe best will convey these emotional states to the audience. You might use exaggerated gestures, masks, music, etc, to depict this emotional state: there’s a lot of creative possibilities here, but keep in mind that your goal is to really get these emotions across to your audience through multiple modes (in other words, if your whole presentation is just reading aloud and making some faces, you’re not going to do so well: you should be able to explain your reasoning behind the performance choices you made, based on your interpretation of lines of the text).

  • Alternate performance options:
    • Do a similar thing with Medea, this time potentially focusing on masks and performing the scene using masks and body movement/language.
    • Do a scene from Othello, focusing on highlighting, in how you stage the scene and say the lines, some aspect of the text that you and your group got through careful, close reading that you think the class might miss on a cursory reading or general class discussion (note, though, that this would require you doing some reading in advance, as we are reading this play in the last two weeks of the semester).
  • Propose a performance option to me (perhaps one that involves researching the history of how the play would be performed, or one that involves bringing in a more modern-day context/modern music and visuals that you think will help us gain insights into the original play)

(note: you do not have to memorize your scene–you can read it aloud from paper–but you shouldn’t just recite your lines. That’s liable to get your group a C- or below. This goes for all performance options).

Created an annotated edition of a part of a class text: Often while discussing the epics, plays, and poetry in the Norton, we’ve referred back to either the introduction to the text or the explanatory footnotes on the bottom in order to understand better what is going on in the text. While we’ve noted that these footnotes are helpful, they are usually limited to “historical/cultural context”; there are other kinds of footnotes and comments that might be helpful to a reader, such as a gloss on the possible meanings of a word, or an explanation of what a tricky line might mean (and we’ll see this more when we get to Othello, with footnotes that help us to untangle some of the difficult language in the play). My challenge to you is to create an “annotated edition” of a piece/part of one of the texts we read with an audience of Baruch students in mind (particularly Baruch students who might be entering a Great Works course next semester), with a 3-5 page introduction and footnotes (or 2 pages each per group member, if you do this as a group). What, do you think, a Baruch student would want to know about this text, or should know about this text as they read it? What would you have wanted to know? What kinds of footnotes, or what kind of introduction, would you have found helpful? You might make footnotes that deal with historical/cultural context you research, footnotes that define difficult words/note possible meanings to different words, footnotes that point to important parallels and structural details, footnotes that give a few different interpretations of a passage, footnotes that note parallels in other texts we’ve read, footnotes that point to other more contemporary sources that are useful in understanding the text (like a link to a Youtube performance of the play or song that relates to the text in some way)….be creative, and think about what would be interesting or useful to a future student in this class (or to your past self). Even things like reaction GIFs might be fun here! The best version of this project would use several kinds of footnotes (one that just defines words and gives a little bit of historical context, for instance, is not likely to do as well), and demonstrate that the writer really thought about how to reach their future Baruch audience; you should feel like you are a kind of expert on the text by the time you’re done. With this project, you would not need to include a 2-page explanation of why you made the decisions that you did, because the introduction you write will serve that purpose. Make sure to include a works cited page for the research you do.

  • Your footnotes and annotations should achieve the following tasks (and altogether, should add up to about 2.5 pages of writing)
    • Look up and explain historical references
    • Look up and explain words and their usages in different time periods and cultures (try using the Oxford English Dictionary)
    • Look up and explain belief systems (e.g. provide background on religious or philosophical schools of thought) and cultural practices (such as marriage, childbearing, ways of making a living).
    • Contextualize a piece of literature with art or music (or other art forms) with links and discussion of the connections
    • Justify or argue against translation choices
    • Execute close readings and explorations of ambiguous or otherwise noteworthy passages
    • Call attention to important moments in the text that should be registered
  • A good tool for this would be Google docs, because it would allow a group to work on annotating collaboratively. Check out other collaborative writing apps here: https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/wgw/faculty-resources/collaborative-writing-tech-resources/
  • If you do this as a group, it would probably be best to decide on “jobs” for each person (one person is in charge of historical context annotations, for example). Remember you still need to do a 2 page explanation of what you did and why—what your role was (which is ultimately a protection for you against one person doing a lot of work and another person being less diligent).
  • You will get a zero if you take footnotes from another annotated text, or if your footnotes/introduction plagiarizes from a source outside your own brain (again, you can use that source, but cite it, please, and show what you’re adding to what the source says). That’s still plagiarism. Don’t do it.
  • The above bullet point is especially true if you do Othello: there are several annotated editions out there, and it may be tempting to look at those ones for ideas. Avoid even looking at them for “ideas,” because it may be difficult to get those ideas out of your mind (though of course when reading, use the footnotes to understand the play). You will get an zero on the project if you take footnotes from any edition of this play, because that is plagiarism.

Create your own mini-anthology: Create a mini-anthology centered around a theme, concept, or question of your choosing (The Norton Anthology is an example of an anthology, though yours will be much smaller and narrower). You will choose four texts from our reading (with the possibility of one outside reading, as long as you consult with me about it) and develop an essay-length introduction that gives context and explains your choices, in addition to creating para-­textual material(cover, table of contents, etc.). When you present for the final exam, present your anthology to the class as if you were pitching it to a group of publishers.

Your anthology should include:

  1. A cover page with an original title, some kind of cover art, and your name included
  2. A Table of Contents listing the works included
  3. An introductory essay of at least 5 pages
  4. A paragraph about the editor

At least two of your texts should be ones we’ve covered past the midterm (Thousand and One Nights forward) and they should be by four different authors. If you choose one work outside of what we’ve read, you should have a solid argument for why you think it’s a great work of literature.

Introductory Essay should include:

  • Opening: argument for importance of this theme or question, and what your chosen texts tell us about it.
  • Body: Discussion of individual works and how they fit the theme and support your argument. Draw on specific textual examples from each text to support your opening argument. The body of your introduction will function much like a comparative essay, drawing connections or contrasts between texts that would not have been evident had we looked at them in isolation, and relying on claims, evidence, and analysis.
  • Conclusion:Explanation of how this theme or question, and the way it is explored in your chosen works, is relevant to our lives today.Again, be specific!

What to avoid

  • Don’t simply bring together texts on the same topic, without making any substantive argument about how they fit together or how reading them together offers us a new perspective (so for example, say more than “These texts tell us about the role of women throughout history”—say what about the role of women they show us).
  • Don’t make very general claims: When you’re telling your reader why it is important that they read these selections, your reasons should be specific to the texts you’ve chosen—telling them that literature can have a deeper meaning, change the way we think about the world, or help us to realize injustice, while true, are things that could be said about any other number of works. Be as specific as you can (for example: what injustice? What about that injustice are they helping us realize?).

“Blog” your experience of reading Othello or re-reading another class text we read post-midterm (or if from before that, it should be a text you did not do your analytical paper or oral midterm for):

Use Blogs@Baruch to make a blog containing at least 8 entries about your chosen text, including at least one of each type listed below. That is, once you’ve done the required entries, you can make multiples of each entry type or come up with some kinds of entries of your own. Creative entries (including, but not limited to original poetry, videos of your own performance, visual art, music, etc.) are welcome but must be accompanied by a thoughtful written explanation of the work and its connection to your chosen text.

Each blog entry must by tied to a quotation from the text and must include some kind of visual element—an image, a gif, a video, etc.—though this can include, for example, a picture of text, like of your annotations in your book

Required Entries:

Your blog must include one of each of the following entries. The others (for a total of at least 8) are up  to you. Multiples of one type are okay, as are types of entries not listed here. Entry lengths may vary, but 300-500 words is a good general length.

  1. Analysis of a passage: This entry should focus on the careful analysis of a single passage. Before writing, be sure to read the passage several times and annotate it carefully. In your analysis, highlight choices in the passage that are not easily paraphrased, that resist easy explanation. Building on your observations about those choices, what makes this passage significant tour reading of the text?
  2. Analysis of an adaptation or performance: Respond to a single performance or adaptation of the text (though if you can’t find anything for the text you’ve chosen, let me know). Your response should focus specifically on a choice that was made in adapting the text. Remember that adaptation and performance are always grounded in interpretation. What interpretation does this choice suggest? Based on your reading of the play, is that interpretation a solid one? If you disagree with it, explain why(with evidence).
  3. Analysis of an image: Find an image that, for you, particularly resonates with the text. This may be an image directly linked to the text (like a painting portraying Shahrzad and the king if you’re doing 1,001 Nights) or an image from the period the text comes from (such as an English Renaissance painting if you’re doing Othello), or an image in which you see some kind of connection (though you must be able to make a compelling case for its connection). Be sure to include both the image and full citation information for the image. This entry should include both a close analysis of the image itself and an explanation of how you see its connection to the text
  4. Analysis of a connection: For this entry, think back over the texts we’ve read this semester and explain a connection between this text and one of our previous texts. The connection may compare (locate a  similarity) or contrast (reveal a distinction), but it should be grounded in textual evidence.

 

Reflection

Writing assignments

Reflection on reading/interpreting strategies

Write an nearing-end-of-semester reflection on what you have learned about how to approach, read, and interpret texts, and what you have learned about strategies for reading texts from different cultures and periods. In this reflection, you should mention at least two-three specific strategies and approaches that you can take with you beyond this class; you also need examples from at least three texts where you show how you use/have used this strategy (for example, if you talk about interpreting by comparing translations, you should actually compare two translations of a selection of text; if you discuss reading aloud, you should use an example from a text where reading aloud helped you to hear something new in the text that you missed, and what it was that you noticed through reading aloud; if you mention reading for structure, you should give an example where noting a parallel helped you to notice or understand something about the text, and what it is you understood). Include, at the end, annotations on a passage you think you will use in order to do your final creative project, using the skills you have delineated in the reflection itself. This reflection should be at least 800 words long.

This will be due by Wednesday 5/4 (in class or, if by email, by 11:59pm). Note that this is worth ten percent of your grade.

Analytical paper following up on oral midterm (due 3/26, 11:59pm)

analytical midterm paper, Writing assignments

Assignment:

For your midterm essay, write a paper of at least 1500 words (up to 1700) that focuses on ONE of  the texts we have read in the course so far, makes an argument about the text, and supports that argument. Your argument should be your answer to a larger thematic question (see possible questions from oral midterm exam, these potential paper topics, which are based on the questions from the oral midterm, or these prompts on Sakuntala/Medea).  In other words, you are a tour guide through the text, making your argument about the text, telling us how to read it and why we should read it that way by giving evidence and interpreting it (telling us why the word, images, structures make us read it in a specific way). This means you should avoid just summarizing the plot: I have read these texts already–I want YOU to tell me HOW I should read them!

While this paper should focus on one text, you should also compare different VOICES in the text (if you are making an argument about Medea, you should compare her perspective to that of Creon’s, the nurse’s, Jason’s, etc, in order to make your point). Additionally, in your second to last paragraph, you should briefly bring in one of the other texts from the class and discuss how this 2nd text’s take on your topic illuminates something about the values of the culture in the text you have focused on for your paper (for example, when discussing duty in the BG, you might bring in Medea’s ideas of what is owed to the family and to oaths to highlight a different perspective on duty as well as what the BG’s conception of duty says about the culture/society it comes out of. Or, you might compare the BG’s conception of duty to Sakuntala’s–for both, duty is defined as dharma, but the two texts present dharma in different ways).

You may want to focus on expanding an argument or exploring a question that you addressed in one of your short papers.

Short paper no. 4 is your draft of this paper. See specific prompt for it at the bottom of this post.

Breakdown of what to include:

Your paper must have a clearly stated thesis in the first paragraph and you must develop your argument in a logical, persuasive manner throughout the rest of the essay, support your points with textual evidence, and conclude with a paragraph that summarizes your findings. Thus, your paper should contain the following elements: argument, evidence, interpretation of evidence. It should have the follow elements: introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion. I have attached a further explanation of what I mean by these things, and I have attached a template you can use to fill in the blanks and create an argument.

  • Introduction (last sentence or two: your argument)
  • Body paragraphs (topic sentence + evidence + interpretation of evidence)
  • Conclusion (restate points + so what)

Structure:

Here are two possible structures for your paper. Both are valid; it depends on your style:

1)Argument-driven: In your introduction paragraph, introduce a research question you seek to answer and give your answer (thesis statement) at the end of the paragraph. Use your body paragraphs to prove that thesis statement.

2) Inquiry-driven:  In your introduction, introduce a research question you seek to answer; use your body paragraphs to explore this question; come to a conclusion/answer (thesis statement) in your conclusion paragraph.

Format:

  • At least 1500 words (no less: you will lose points if your paper is any shorter). Provide a word count: Do not hand in handwritten assignments to me; stapled/paper clipped
  • Title and Page numbers
  • Bibliography and citations in MLA format
  • Times 12 point font
  • 1-inch margins
  • Double spaced; No extra spaces after paragraphs
  • Fully edited: free of typographical, spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors
  • Formal language: avoid “you,” “well,” and other slang words.

Resources:

Fill in the blanks to make an argument

More argument templates with examples

Notes on argument, evidence, interpretation

***

Draft for analytical paper, focusing on structure (short paper number 4): 3/7, 3/9 or 3/14

In our short papers so far, we’ve asked questions, tried to pose answers to these questions (as arguments), and tried to use textual evidence to support/build on those arguments (evidence and interpretation). The last thing I want you to focus on before your oral midterm and analytical paper is structure, which is one of the most useful interpretive tools, but also often difficult to see if you are not used to reading for it. This can mean simple repetition, but it can also mean direct parallels being drawn (through repeated images, colors, comparisons, speech, and linguistic echoes). If a parallel is drawn we need to pay attention.

Parallels are not always positive; they may be highlighting differences (or, the difference may be calling our attention to a change in character, or a change in the intensity of the situation). For example, Sakuntala features the king spying on another character in a garden in Act I and Act VII, but the scene in Act VII has a much different tone and resonance. To do more than point out parallels, you need to think about where the passages occur. As parallels build up, they play a part in making sense of the narrative and how we are supposed to interpret it. For example, Gilgamesh and Enkidu are both described at different points as being shaggy and wild, but it means something different, and has different weight, when we see Gilgamesh described this way after Enkidu’s death. You can consider: has the meaning of an image (or whatever the parallel is) changed based on context?

Please write a response paper of 1-2 pages on the text you want to work with/write about in your analytical paper, in which you make an argument about how the text is structured (in other words, what looking at the structure allows you to see about the text’s meaning), how it deploys parallels, and to what end. Alternately, make the argument you want to make in your analytical paper, and use what you’re saying about structure to help you build/support it. Be sure to make an argument and use textual evidence  (this means quote the text) to support it, again showing me your annotations

Oral midterm (3/16)

oral midterm exam, Writing assignments

Oral midterm examination:

For your midterm, you are going to pick one of the following questions (or a question of your choice, as long as you vet it with me) and one character from one of the texts we have read so far. Then, you will answer the question you have chosen from that character’s perspective–what would be that character’s point of view on the question? How do they enact that point of view–and are they successful in enacting it (do their actions match their perspective)? Consider what investments the character has in the issue, how the character might define concepts in the question (for example, what is “love” for Enkidu and Gilgamesh vs for Medea?), and what biases and concerns they might have.

For the midterm itself, you will present to me, one on one, the perspective of this character using passages from the text (you should bring a one-page sheet with passages from the text you plan to use). You will have 3-4 minutes to make your claims about the point of view of your character in relation to this question, so you should be prepared to be direct, to point to  and quote specific passages to find evidence and to prove that your passages support your claim by using the words/imagery/tone in the passage.

Questions (if there are other questions you want to address, suggest them to me): 

  1. Right action: How does your character define what is right in complicated situations–how does your character determine what is the right thing to do? How do we learn what is right based on the character’s actions/beliefs and on the text?
  2. The city/the city vs. the natural world: To your character, is the city something worthy of celebration, and why? If your character has some doubts on this issue, what are some critiques of the city, especially in light of what it does to nature and human relationship to it? What is the text trying to show about the city, and/or about the natural world, through your character?
  3. Quest: For your character, what is worth seeking out, and why? How does what the character seeks define him/her? What is the text trying to illuminate, through your character and his/her quest?
  4. Duty: If duty is what is “due,” then what defines what is due for your character–society, responsibility to another individual, honor? How should the character show, demonstrate, or fulfill his/her duty, and what are some complications that get in the way of fulfilling duty? How does the character respond to, fulfill, or fail to fulfill their duty/duties? What is the text trying to illuminate through your character’s relationship to (and response to) her/her duties?
  5. Love: How does the text/character present love, and what is it? According to your character, does love occur between people, or does the character define love in another way (i.e., love of duty): what is worth loving, and why, according to your character, or the text through your character? According to your character, or the text through your character, what does he/she owe to what/who he/she loves, and why–what are the obligations of love?
  6. Heroism: How does your character define heroism and being a hero, and why? (Alternately, how does your character define being a good leader and why?). What do you think the text is showing about being a leader/hero through your character?
  7. Role of women:  What is the role of women as seen through your character’s eyes: what power/agency do the women have, and/or how do they see themselves potentially as disempowered or disadvantaged? What is the text trying to illuminate about women and their roles in society through your character? (Note: the answer to this question shouldn’t just be “women are treated as lesser”–dig deeper than that. Women have agency and authority in interesting ways in some of the works we’ve read).
  8. Lesson: As we’ve seen, texts often seek to educate their readers in some way (emotionally, as future citizens of a city-state, through the education of an irresponsible king, etc). What lesson or lessons do you think are imparted through your character (through his/her actions, behavior, and general presence in the text)?

Practice beforehand: 

  1. In-class practice/modeling through class debate (9/30); possible in-class practice for 10/7.
  2. Group-work (10/14), where you will bring in some passages you want to refer to and, in groups of three, give each other feedback on the claims and ideas you have.
  3. During midterm itself (10/21), you will sit with your group and use the time you’re waiting in to practice with each other. I’ll give 5 minutes at the top of class for the first person on the list to practice.

Due for midterm: 

  • Mon, 3/14: Come prepared with your character, question/theme, and some passages chosen for group feedback.
  • Midterm date itself, 3/16: Bring your passages on one sheet of paper with annotations (underlining, highlighting, notes in the margins, even an outline on the side of your passages), and, of course, yourself and your voice.

Grading: Since this is not a public speaking course per se, I will not be judging you on things like how often you say “um,” and if you’re a little nervous, that’s okay.  Here is what I will judge you on:

A= While you demonstrate that you understand concepts we covered in class, you also have made your own independent claim and brought in new textual evidence, or taken textual evidence we have discussed and looked at it from a different angle; you competently close read the textual evidence you quoted/mentioned to prove your claim(s).

B= You restate concepts we covered in class, but you have shown some effort to bring in a new idea and passages. You make an attempt to close read the textual evidence you quoted/mentioned to prove your claim(s).

C= You restate concepts, ideas and passages that we have covered in class, and you do it competently. You do not, however, bring in anything new, in terms of claims or passages

D= You briefly restate some ideas we have covered in class, but some claims may be inaccurate. You rarely refer to the text itself.

F= You do not state ideas we have covered in class, or are very vague about these ideas, and you make claims that may be inaccurate or too general, without referring to the text itself.

Notes:

  • Note that in the case of a text like The Hymn to Aten, the “character” you choose might be the narrator.
  • We may be able to make more time if some people would be around to do this in my office hours after class OR in the period the room is open before class starts (about 30 minutes before)

Short Paper #1- Epic of Gilgamesh

short paper prompts

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, after Gilgamesh and Enkidu killed a giant Humbaba, they cut down and chose timber of cedar which of Humbaba guarded.  Then they made a huge door with cedar to delight Enlil because Enlil sent Humbaba to guard the Cedar Forest and its trees and they killed Humbaba and cut the cedar.  They sent it to Nippur that is sanctuary of Enlil.

The behaviors of Gilgamesh and Enkidu are unusual toward Enlil.  The reason why Enlil sent Humbaba to the Cedar Forest is that he wanted people not to cut the cedars.  In the Epic of Gilgamesh, there is a quote “In order to safeguard the forest of cedars, Enlil has appointed him to terrify the people” on page 112.  However, Gilgamesh and Enkidu not only cut the cedars and killed Humbaba.  They did not followed what Enlil who is God said.  Even though Gilgamesh is two third god and Enkidu is one half beast, they are lower than a complete God, Enlil.  These behaviors are against Enlil.  I believed that ancient people feared God more than modern time’s people.  Nonetheless, Gilgamesh and Enkidu fight against a god’s will.  They made a big door and sent it to Nippur where is the sanctuary place of Enlil to be apologized from Enlil.  However, it seems that they flattered to Enlil.

This passage leave me wanting to know the further story.  If I were Enlil in the epic, I would not forgive Gilgamesh and Enkidu because they ignore what I said.  I expect Enlil would hate and give them punishment.  In the Epic of Gilgamesh’s brief summary on page 97, after the second challenge, the gods make a decision that Gilgamesh or Enkidu must die.  When the gods make the decision, Enlil might support that one of them should die.

When I read the epic, I felt I have a cultural ignorance.  In this story, Gilgamesh was son of Ninsun who is a goddess.  He was able to predict the future through dream.  God such as Shamash who is another God in the epic answer his question through dream. Predicting future is one of ancient priest roles in ancient religion.  Moreover, he was wise as god, brave and stronger than any other people.  But at the same time, he was a king of Uruk.  In my art history class, I learned that religion played very important role in ancient society such as Babylon or Sumer and priests were classified as high social class people.   In this epic, Gilgamesh played two role.  One is priest and the other is king.  I learned that a person who has religious power could have power in a politic.

Short paper prompts for the semester

short paper prompts, Writing assignments

Note: short paper prompts beyond the first one are still in the stages of being revised as of 2/1/16.

Short paper #1 (due 2/8 or 2/10)

Asking Questions

As you know, your first short paper is due one of two days, depending on when you choose is best for you to do it: Monday, 2/8 or Wednesday, 2/10 (usually dates short papers are due won’t be so close to each other!). Your short paper should be on the text due to be read for that day, though you may compare that text to something we’ve read on a previous class day. In other words, here’s what you should write about depending on the day you choose to hand in the paper.

Wednesday, February 8th

Gilgamesh, 95-99 (overview), 99-124

Thursday, February 10th

Gilgamesh, 124 (Tablet VI)-151

****

Asking questions: Find a passage in the reading for the day that confuses you, sparks your interest, calls your attention, or seems like it might be interpreted in a few different ways. Start by asking yourself the simple questions “what do I find confusing or ambiguous about this passage?” and “why is that confusing?” What confuses you or interests you about this passage: is it something in the language or imagery? Is the way a character behaves  unexpected or unusual to you, or do the social/cultural values the text presents feel unfamiliar or confusing? Do you just feel uncertain about what is going on in the text, or why it is happening?

Assignment: In 1-2 pages, present the passage (or passages) and your questions about it; explain how the text creates this ambiguity/confusion, and the effect that it has on you as a reader (does it make you uncomfortable, frustrate you, leave you wanting to know something? Does it make you start guessing about possible outcomes? Do you feel you have a cultural ignorance about the social values of the people who would have read or heard these texts when they were produced?). Try to pose some possible answers to these questions, and pay attention, where you can, to how being geographically and temporally distanced from the culture this text comes from affects how we read and understand it.

  • Purpose: By asking these questions, we can begin to weed out what makes a good research question for a paper vs. what makes for a factual question that has a brief answer (A factual question might be, “Who is Gilgamesh historically?” while a good research/interpretative question might be “Are we expected to admire Gilgamesh and his actions, or should we critique him in some way?”). A factual question results, usually, in one answer; a solid research question allows for several answers, which means we can get a debatable argument out of it.

Short paper #2 (due 2/17, 2/22, or 2/24)

Argument

Close reading and argument: When we close read, we “observe facts and details about the text,” looking for patterns (repetitions, contradictions, similarities between characters and other parts of the text) (Kain). To observe and find these patterns, we should focus our attention on short, manageable passages of a longer text and annotate, or write notes on and next to, these shorter passages (annotation is a good way to help us keep track of observations, force ourselves to pay close attention, and to think not just silently, but through our writing itself). We then interpret these observations in order to make an argument (which should be an answer to a question or questions you formed while annotating and close reading the text).  An interpretation of a text is an argument for how to understand it AND why that matters. If we start from the assumption that all texts are trying to teach us something, then the interpretation is an argument for what it is trying to teach us, how it does so, and why that lesson matters for the text

Assignment:

  1. 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 words, a passage about which you have some questions (remember short paper no 1!).
  2. 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).
  3.  After you have attended to the words of the passage and asked your questions, try to find  an online source that provides some kind of possible answer to one of your questions. Present that answer–that argument–in your short paper (and cite clearly where you found it!). 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).
  4. After presenting the argument from the online source, give YOUR response to that argument: agree, but add something new (agree with a difference), disagree, and say why you disagree, or agree and disagree at the same time and explain why (say to what point you agree with it, but where you diverge, or point out a complication with the original argument from the online source). The point here is not to regurgitate an argument from the internet, but to create your OWN, more specific argument in response to a general claim that you might find on Schmoop.com or Sparknotes.

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.

Short paper #3 (due 2/29 or 3/2)

Evidence and interpretation/analysis

Assignment: So far, you’ve had to write a paper that posed questions about an ambiguous moment or moments in a text we’ve read, and a paper that tried to pose an argument based on addressing one of those questions. For this assignment, we’ll be zooming even more into textual evidence and interpretation. Write a 1-2 page paper about Medea, focusing on a few lines of the text (again, try to use lines that you find ambiguous/are open to multiple ways of reading; you should quote these lines in your paper), and giving your interpretation of what they mean and why they are important. Pay attention to details (specific word choices, imagery, etc) in your interpretation. At the end of this interpretation, pose an argument that you think your interpretation of these lines could support.   Please do some close reading (of no more than 4–5 lines if possible; however, you may refer back to other lines/phrases in the text in your interpretation), and annotate those lines–again, provide evidence of your annotation in the form of a photocopy or photograph or show it to me in class (and the annotation should not just be you highlighting the lines–make some marginal notes, underline certain words that are important).

(If you want more specific questions to address about either of the plays in order to fulfill the goals of this assignment, click here: More specific questions about Medea and Sakuntala. You will still need to find a passage and interpret it, but these questions might help you to focus your ideas.)

Purpose: Fundamental to making an argument convincing is the use of  evidence to support it. In the case of literary analysis this means quoting the text. However,  for the use of textual evidence to be meaningful in terms of making an argument, you need to explain how the evidence does what you claim it does. That is, you see the language (or  structure or character, etc.) as ambiguous in some sense and in need of analysis to fully explain how to understand what the text is conveying.

Yet it is important to remember that there are multiple possible interpretations for any moment of ambiguity and you are making a case for one of those. Therefore, it is necessary to show what the ambiguity is and then show evidence from the text that supports your interpretation (disambiguation) of that ambiguity. You need to explain how it does what you claim because your audience does not necessarily read the same way you do. Your interpretation is immediately clear to you because you have made the connections in your head, but you need to make them clear to someone else.

Short paper #4 (due 3/7, 3/9, or 3/14)

Structure (draft for analytical paper)

In our short papers so far, we’ve asked questions, tried to pose answers to these questions (as arguments), and tried to use textual evidence to support/build on those arguments (evidence and interpretation). The last thing I want you to focus on before your oral midterm and analytical paper is structure, which is one of the most useful interpretive tools, but also often difficult to see if you are not used to reading for it. This can mean simple repetition, but it can also mean direct parallels being drawn (through repeated images, colors, comparisons, speech, and linguistic echoes). If a parallel is drawn we need to pay attention.

Parallels are not always positive; they may be highlighting differences (or, the difference may be calling our attention to a change in character, or a change in the intensity of the situation). For example, Sakuntala features the king spying on another character in a garden in Act I and Act VII, but the scene in Act VII has a much different tone and resonance. To do more than point out parallels, you need to think about where the passages occur. As parallels build up, they play a part in making sense of the narrative and how we are supposed to interpret it. For example, Gilgamesh and Enkidu are both described at different points as being shaggy and wild, but it means something different, and has different weight, when we see Gilgamesh described this way after Enkidu’s death. You can consider: has the meaning of an image (or whatever the parallel is) changed based on context?

Please write a response paper of 1-2 pages on the text you want to work with/write about in your analytical paper, in which you make an argument about how the text is structured (in other words, what looking at the structure allows you to see about the text’s meaning), how it deploys parallels, and to what end. Alternately, make the argument you want to make in your analytical paper, and use what you’re saying about structure to help you build/support it. Be sure to make an argument and use textual evidence  (this means quote the text) to support it, again showing me your annotations

Short paper #5 (due 3/28, 3/30, 4/4, 4/6, 4/11, 4/13)

For short paper #5, repeat what we’ve practiced in short papers #2, #3, and #4: Pick a short passage (a few lines or sentences) and close read it, making sure to annotate your text and provide evidence of that annotation. This time, however, I want you to find 1-2 other translations of the passage you chose, and compare them to each other: how do these different translations seem like and unlike each other? What changes in vocabulary, tone, and even content do you see, and what is significant, to your mind, about these changes? What effect do you think one translator is going for versus another (for example, is one using more exuberant language to create a melodramatic effect)?

In 1-2 pages, present your observations of these differences and similarities and what you think is significant about them.

Note: if you can find a translation into another language you also read (such as French or Spanish), that’s great too–you might compare these translations across languages).

Links to a few alternate translations:

Kokinshu: Translations by Thomas McAuley:

Book 1. Spring

Poem 1:http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0321.shtml 

Poem 2: http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0322.shtml

Poem 3: http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0323.shtml

Poem 23: http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0331.shtml

Poem 25: http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0332.shtml

Poem 26: http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0333.shtml

Book 2: Spring

Poem 69: http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0346.shtml

Poem 70: http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0347.shtml

Poem 71: http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0348.shtml

Book 11: Love

Poem 553: http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0591.shtml

Poem 554: http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0592.shtml

Book 13: Love

Poem 635: http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0641.shtml

Poem 657: http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0647.shtml

Poem 658: http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/waka0648.shtml

Translations of Kokinshu poems by Larry Hammer: http://lnhammer.livejournal.com/182467.htm

Tang Dynasty Poetry: A google search for these poems will lead you to several different translations of the poems we read by Li Bo, Du Fu, Wang Wei and Bo Juyi. Here are a few links:

Poems in Chinese, pinyin, literal English, poetic English

Wang Wei

Du Fu

Li Bo

One Thousand and One Nights:

Prologue/Frame Tale: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/burt1k1/tale00.htm

The Tale of the Donkey and the Bull (the one the Vizier tells his daughter, Shahrzad): http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/burt1k1/tale00.htm

(will try to post others: can Google as well)

OPTIONAL/EXTRA CREDIT Short paper #6 (due 4/11, 4/13, 4/18, 4/20–or by the end of spring break, 5/2)

  • Note that if you missed a short paper, you should be doing this one! If you’ve done all five and gotten checks on them, this work outs to about 2 points on top of your grade.

Structure Part II

Structure, as we’ve said, is one of the most useful interpretive tools, but also often difficult to see if you are not used to reading for it. This can mean simple repetition, but it can also mean direct parallels being drawn (through repeated images, colors, comparisons, speech, and linguistic echoes)–basically, if we see a “pattern,” we should take note of it. If a parallel is drawn we need to pay attention. We’ve done a short paper on this before, but it’s worth practicing paying attention to structure because it helps us see what the text is trying to convey about its plot and characters. This time, though, I’d like you to try to give “names” or “labels” to the parallels/patterns you find, thinking about how you’d explain these stylistic/rhetorical moves to another person (don’t stress over this part: it’s just that in naming things for ourselves, we can often recall what they are for ourselves better).

As a reminder: Parallels are not always positive; they may be highlighting differences (or, the difference may be calling our attention to a change in character, or a change in the intensity of the situation). For example, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight begins with Gawain in King Arthur’s court, and it ends with Gawain in King Arthur’s court, but the return to the court has a much different tone and we see the court in a different light. To do more than point out parallels, you need to think about where the passages occur. As parallels build up, they play a part in making sense of the narrative and how we are supposed to interpret it. For example, lots of objects are described as alternately “green” and “gold” in Sir Gawain: how are these objects connected, are the colors just chosen at random? And Gawain is woken by the lady of the house, while the man of the house goes out hunting, three times, but there are subtle and important shifts in each “bedroom scene” and “hunting scene.” You can consider: has the meaning of an image (or whatever the parallel is) changed based on context?

Please write a response paper of 1-2 pages on The Pillow Book or Sir Gawain, in which you make an argument about how the text is structured (in other words, what looking at the structure allows you to see about the text’s meaning), how it deploys parallels, and to what end. Be sure to make an argument and use textual evidence  (this means quote the text) to support it, again showing me your annotations