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

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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

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)

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