Assignments

English 2200: Writing about Literature, Fall 2015

Section 03: TR 2:00-3:15PM, Arts & Sciences 363

Film and Television Availability

This chart provides links to our class's required films that are available from Apple (digital purchase or rental), Amazon (digital purchase, rental, or streaming), Internet Archive (free download or streaming), Netflix (streaming), or GCSU Library (4 hour reserves). Check Can I Stream It?, a clearinghouse of film and television streaming sites, for availability to purchase films from Amazon, rented on disc from Netflix, or stream on services like Cinemax, Crackle, Encore, Epix, HBO, Hulu, Google Play, Showtime, Starz, Vudu, and XBox, XFinity Streampix, and YouTube.

 

Film or Television Episode Availability

Boyhood

Apple | Amazon | GCSU

Un Chien Andalou

Archive | GCSU

Dr. Strangelove: or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Apple | Amazon | GCSU

Hannibal, "Mukozuke" (Season 2, Episode 5)

Apple | Amazon

True Detective, "The Secret Fate of All Life" (Season 1, Episode 5)

Apple | Amazon

Veep, "Alicia" (Season 3, Episode 3)

Apple | Amazon

In Class Activities

1. The Elements of Poetry

To begin our discussion of one of the contemporary poems, let's divide into 6 groups of 3 or 4 members each. Each group will discuss an element of poetry (using the Barnet textbook to help your analysis) for about 10 minutes and then report the results of your analysis to the class.

  1. the speaker and the poet (Barnet 221-3)
  2. diction and tone (Barnet 223-30)
  3. figurative language such as simile, metaphor, synechdoche, metonymy, personification, apostrophe, symbol (Barnet 231-7)
  4. structure such as repetitive structure, narrative structure and logical structure (Barnet 237-43)
  5. verbal irony and paradox (Barnet 244-8)
  6. rhythm and versification such as rhythm, meter, rhyme, and stanzaic patterns (Barnet 248-63)

2. Explicating and Analyzing a Book of Poetry

Today, we'll divide into groups to explicate a brief part of a poem in Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric and then analyze the overall meaning of the book.

 

Here are the discussion questions:

  1. Explicate the most important and brief passage (a paragraph or stanza) from your assigned poem.
  2. Discuss how does your group's assigned poem fit into the overall the book?
  3. Analyze the core conflict and unifying theme of Citizen: An American Lyric.

Here are the poems:

  1. Hurricane Katrina (82-86) or In Memory of Trayvon Martin (88-90)
  2. In Memory of James Craig Anderson (92-95) or Jena Six (98-101)
  3. Stop and Frisk (104-113) or In Memory of Mark Duggan (114-118)
  4. World Cup (120-129) or Making Room (131-135)
  5. [Some years there exists a wanting to escape—] (139-149) or July 13, 2013 (150-159)

3. Developing a Thesis

Using your ideas from Close Reading Prewriting 4: Brainstorming and applying the Developing Your Thesis page, compose two potential thesis statements for your Close Reading Paper, one on a work of poetry and the other on a work of fiction, that make a claim, defines the scope of your argument, and shapes your argument.

4. From Conflict and Theme to Idea and Significance

In preparation for the next formal paper, let's transition from discussing the core conflict and overall theme to also explicitly exploring the ideas and significance of literary works. Divide into groups of 3 or 4 and discuss the following issues:

  1. What are some of the core conflicts of The Sculptor?
  2. What are some of the general themes of the graphic novel?
  3. What ideas does The Sculptor explore and advance?
  4. Why are those ideas important, and why is this graphic novel significant?

5. Developing an Idea and Significance Thesis

Let's practice writing thesis statements for the idea and significance paper.

 

On your own...

  1. Select a genre (poetry, fiction, graphic literature, or drama) on which you did not write your close reading paper.
  2. Select a specific in class work from that genre.
  3. What are some of the important ideas that the work explores?
  4. What are some of the reasons why those ideas are significant (personally, existentially, legally, politically, morally, culturally, and so forth)?
  5. Write a thesis that states both the key idea of the work and why it's significant (it will probably be a compound or compound complex sentence).

Next, with a partner...

  1. Share your theses and provide feedback on whether or not the statements make debateable claims, defines the scope of your argument appropriate to a 4-6 page paper, and shapes the organization of your essay.
  2. Repeating steps 3-5 from above (ideas, significance, thesis), collaboratively write a thesis statement for a potential idea and significance paper on Annie Baker's The Flick.

Finally, as a class...

  1. Share some of your theses and provide feedback on the statements' claims, scopes, and structure.
  2. Develop outlines that prove and organize the claims.

6. Film Analysis

Today, we're going to respond to the significance paper and start the film and television unit. Break into your significance paper peer response groups and complete the peer response. Then, using Timothy Corrigan's "Film Terms and Topics for Film Analysis and Writing" and/or the Film Analysis handout, discuss the following film elements in Un Chien Andalou:

 

Significance Paper Peer Response Group 1: mise en scène (Corrigan 51)

Significance Paper Peer Response Group 2: the shot (Corrigan 57)

Significance Paper Peer Response Group 3: the edited image, i.e., editing (Corrigan 65)

Significance Paper Peer Response Group 4: sound (Corrigan 71)

Significance Paper Peer Response Group 5: the shot (Corrigan 57)

Significance Paper Peer Response Group 6: the edited image, i.e., editing (Corrigan 65)

7. Developing a Summary and Evaluation Thesis

Let's practice developing summary and evaluation theses.

 

On your own...

  1. Choose a work of literature from a different genre than you've written about in the previous two papers.
  2. Brainstorm the core conflict and overall theme of the work.
  3. Brainstorm what about the text seemed effective and successful to you as well as what about the text seemed to be ineffective and unsuccessful.
  4. How does the effectiveness or ineffectiveness bear on the conflict/theme of the work, and vice versa.
  5. Compose a practice thesis statement both summarizes and evaluates the text.

Next, with your fellow group project members...

  1. Share your theses and provide feedback on whether or not the statement makes a debateable claims, defines the scope of your argument appropriate to a 4-6 page paper, and shapes the organization of your essay.
  2. Repeating steps 2-4 from above (conflict/theme, effectiveness/ineffectiveness, relationship between conflict/theme and effectiveness/successfulness), collaboratively write a thesis statement for a potential idea and significance paper on Veep's episode "Alicia."

Finally, as a class...

  1. Share some of your theses and provide feedback on the statements' claims, scopes, and structure.
  2. Develop outlines that prove and organize the claims.

Close Reading Paper

Prewriting 1: Annotating and Responding

Choose one of the poems for the class on Tuesday, August 25. While reading it, annotate it. After reading and annotating the poem, write down your initial response: What did you find interesting or significant? What ideas does the poem inspire? What questions does the poem raise?

Prewriting 2: Poems and Pictures

Choose one of the images accompanying Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric. Describe what the image is and interpret how the essays/poem either comments on the image or uses the image to advance its theme.

Prewriting 3: Explication

Choose one poem (or section of a poem) of Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric (81-161) and write a journal entry explicating the poem/section line-by-line as exemplified on pages 46-7 and 50 of Barnet's A Short Guide to Writing about Literature.

Prewriting 4: Brainstorming

Choose any poem on the syllabus. Brainstorm its various tensions and meanings. What is the core conflict and overall theme of the poem? Choose any short story or novel on the syllabus. Brainstorm its various tensions and meanings. What is the core conflict and overall theme of the work of fiction?

Poetry or Fiction Explication

We have discussed at length poetry by Broder, Cullen, Dickinson, H. D., Stevens, Williams, Choi, Lockwood, McConnell, Pardlo, Quart, and Rankine and fiction by O'Connor, Petry, Boyle, Lindsey, and Mandel. You have written about some of these works in your prewriting. Now is your opportunity to rigorously analyze a work of literature. For the first formal paper, write a 4-6 page essay that either 1) explicates, line-by-line, a short poem or section of a long poem assigned on the syllabus, being sure to illuminate, through nuanced reading of figurative language, diction, connotation, and symbol, how the central tensions, ambiguities, and contradictions constitute a cohesive theme or 2) examines the most important passage in one of the short stories or novel we have read so far, interpreting it sentence-by-sentence through nuanced reading of figurative language, diction, connotation, and symbol, and arguing its centrality to the core conflicts, character, and overall theme of the story. In other words, using either this short poem or this key passage of fiction, you should write a paper that interprets the theme of the work by explicating the fundamental conflicts within the particular lines of text. Your essay should be driven by a thesis that argues the work's theme and logically organized by close reading of the text: unpack the tension and conflict, connotation and diction, idea and theme.

Parameters

Close Reading Peer Response

The dual goals of this course are for you to read and write about literature in a variety of manners. Prewriting and formal papers allow you to analyze the literary works. Peer response sessions extend the reading and writing process by allowing you and your peers to engage in direct oral and written dialogue about matters of composition and interpretation, with the ultimate goal of improving your formal papers. You have the opportunity to revise your close reading paper based upon comments by your peers and professor. You will provide constructive criticism to two or three other members of the class as will they to you. If a group member does not submit her paper in Word or RTF format at least two days before the peer response session, the rest of the group is not responsible for responding to her paper.

  1. Writers upload their papers (in Word or RTF format so everyone can read it) to both GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Discussions > Close Reading Peer Response and GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Close Reading Paper Draft 1 on Thursday, September 17.
  2. Each group member reads, take notes on, and prepares to respond to fellow group members' papers before the peer response class.
  3. For the peer response session, either bring your laptop or bring paper print outs of the papers. The peer response group will collectively complete the Close Reading Paper peer response sheet for each writer, then upload the completed response to GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Discussions > Close Reading Paper Peer Response.

Here are the groups:

Idea and Significance Paper

Prewriting 1: Personal and/or Cultural Significance

After attending "Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays," respond to 1) why and how the plays are personally significant for you as an audience member and/or 2) why and how they are important for the audience in general? In other words, what ideas do they explore, and how are those ideas significant for an individual and/or our culture?

Idea and Significance Essay

In the first formal paper, you closely read a poem or fiction passage and in so doing explicated how the literary language set up the core conflict and overall theme. Since then, we have discussed how literature is significant both personally and culturally. In the second formal paper, you will also interpret the conflict and main idea of a literary work up to October 15 on the syllabus, but in a different genre than you wrote on in your Close Reading Paper (for instance, if you wrote about a poem then, you must write about fiction, graphic literature, or drama now). Beyond simply discussing the issues, you will also examine the text's personal or cultural significance, in other words, its meaning in either your life or the lives of others. Discuss either why this work of literature is important to you or why this work is or should be important to the world. Some questions to consider include but are not limited to: What is the core conflict and overall theme of the work, and why is the literary work important—or not? What ethical, psychological, political, or cultural consequences does the text have? Who do you think should read this work, why do you think they need to read it, and how do you think it will affect them? How has the work of literature confronted, challenged, or changed either your world view or the belief system held by the particular audience? Your thesis should make a claim not only about the meaning of the text but also about the text's significance. Your paper should not only analyze the meaning of the work through textual evidence but also argue the text's significance.

Parameters

Significance Paper Peer Response

The peer response process for the Significance Paper is the same as the procedure for the Close Reading Paper.

  1. Writers upload their papers (in Word or RTF format so everyone can read it) to both GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Discussions > Significance Paper Peer Response and GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Significance Paper Draft 1 on Tuesday, October 20.
  2. Each group member reads, take notes on, and prepares to respond to fellow group members' papers before the peer response class.
  3. For the peer response session, either bring your laptop or bring paper print outs of the papers. The peer response group will collectively complete the Significance Paper peer response sheet for each writer, then upload the completed response to GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Discussions > Significance Paper Peer Response.

Here are the groups:

Summary and Evaluation Paper

You practiced close reading of textual evidence to prove the core conflict and overall theme of a literary work in the first paper and then added argument regarding a literary work's ideas and significance in the second paper. In the third paper, you will also summarily analyze a literary work (in a different genre from the first two papers), proving its conflict and theme, but the focus of your argument will now be on evaluating the text from an aesthetic, moral, or true standpoint. Some questions to help your brainstorming include, but are not limited to: Does the work cohere aesthetically, or does it have a problem with unity? How do you judge the moral content of the text, in other words, is the work moral? Are the characters and the plot realistically portrayed, or is the work satirical or experimental, and why/how does it matter? Is the literary truth conveyed by the text insightful and original or is it trite or contradictory? (Note: These questions are designed to get you thinking, not to be explicitly answered in your paper.) Your paper's thesis should summarize the meaning of the work and evaluate the work. Your summary and evaluation paper should both 1) summarize the text, providing analysis of conflict and theme based on textual evidence, and 2) evaluate the text, providing the reasons for your judgment, i.e., the standards with which you are assessing the work.

Parameters

Peer Response

The peer response for the Summary and Evaluation Paper is the same procedure as the two previous papers. The peer response groups for this paper are the same as the group project.

  1. Writers upload their papers (in Word or RTF format so everyone can read it) to both GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Discussions > Group Project and GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Summary and Evaluation Paper on Tuesday, November 17.
  2. Each group member reads, take notes on, and prepares to respond to fellow group members' papers before the peer response class.
  3. For the peer response session, either bring your laptop or bring paper print outs of the papers. The peer response group will collectively complete the Summary and Evaluation Paper peer response sheet for each writer, then upload the completed response to GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Discussions > Group Project.

Group Research Project

Groups of 3-4 will choose a work of literature from their selected genre (poetry, fiction, graphic literature, drama, film, and television) that is neither by an author on our syllabus nor researched in high school, compile a 12-16 source annotated bibliography of scholarly literary criticism on the text, and share their analysis and research of the text with the class in a 20 minute presentation and 10 minute question and answer session.

 

You may write your research paper on the same literary work as your group project as long as each group member proves her own distinct topic; or you may choose another text which you've not previously written on, subject to professor approval.

1. Group Project Sign Up

Poetry

Tuesday, 11-24

T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

 Victoria Lara
Caroline Olesen
Lauren Rebhandl

Fiction

Tuesday, 11-24

George Orwell, Animal Farm

 Caroline Karnatz
Alex Kennedy
Alaina Minshew

Graphic Literature

Tuesday, 12-1

Art Spiegelman, Maus

 Chelsea Ciminera
Meghan Tucker
Madison Zang

Drama

Tuesday, 12-1

Arthur Miller, The Crucible

 Kristen Johnson
Emily Moore
Morgan Russell

Film

Thursday, 12-3

Spirited Away, dir. Hayao Miyazaki

 Reagan Britton
Dylan Borst
Tori McBrayer
Meg Oberholtzer

Television

Thursday, 12-3

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

 Rachel Blevins
Frankie Brasch
Lindsey Roth

2. Topics, Bibliographies, Plan of Action

The poetry group will select a few poems or a book of poetry by a single poet; the fiction group will select a couple of short stories, a short story collection, or a novel by a single author. The drama group will select a full length play; the graphic literature group will select a graphic novel. The film group will choose a film, and the television group will select a television series.

 

On Tuesday, November 3 in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Group Project, groups will submit 1) 3 ranked choices of literary works, 2) 3 bibliographies (one bibliography for each literary work, each bibliography consisting of 5 scholarly journal articles and 5 books or book chapters) compiled using the Literary Research Methods handout, and 3) a plan of action for the group work. The professor will advise the final selection based on appropriateness and researchability. Please submit the following information in one file:

  1. a list of 3 ranked choices of literary works
  2. 3 bibliographies in MLA Format, compiled using the Literary Research Methods handout
    • Each bibliography must consist of 5 scholarly books from the GCSU and USG libraries and 5 scholarly journal articles from databases like Academic Search Complete and JSTOR.
    • Do not submit primary texts by the author, encyclopedia entries, magazine articles, newspaper articles, book reviews, websites, or study guides like Sparknotes and MasterPlots, or plagiarism paper mills.
    • While other professors might consider encyclopedias, newspapers, magazines, and website study guides to be appropriate for college level research, I deem academic books and peer reviewed journal articles the only appropriate sources for scholarly literary research.
  3. a plan of action listing when the group will meet outside of class as well as each group member's responsibilities

3. Conferences

On Tuesday, November 17, the Poetry, Fiction, and Graphic Literature groups will conference with the professor while other groups work on their Summary and Evaluation papers. On Thursday, November 19, the Drama, Film, and Television groups will conference.

 

For your conference, be prepared to discuss the status of your group project as well as the topic of your individual research paper, which can either add research to a previous paper or be based on your group project.

4. Presentation and Annotated Bibliography

On Tuesday, November 24, Tuesday, December 1, and Thursday, December 3, groups will teach the class their selected literary works in a 20 minute presentation with a 10 minute question and answer session. On the day of the presentation, one group member will submit the group's 12-16 source annotated bibliography (4 sources per group member) to GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Group Project. Be sure to put the annotated bibliography and literary debate paper in one file.

 

The presentation should teach the class the literary work by analyzing a key part of it, conveying the core conflict and overall theme of the work, arguing the idea and significance of the work, summarizing and evaluating the work, and sharing scholarly research that supports your interpretation of the work. Groups may use any of the equipment in our room (whiteboard, projector, speakers, web browser, Powerpoint). Clips like YouTube may be used but do not count toward the 20 minute time limit.

 

An annotated bibliography is an MLA styled works cited list of scholarly books, book chapters, and peer-reviewed journal articles that provides a 75-100 word summary of each secondary source's argument as well as how the secondary source interprets and illuminates the meaning of the primary text, i.e., the literary work. Do not simply summarize the topic, provide the thesis. I recommend answering the following questions:

  1. What question, issue, or topic is the source investigating?
  2. What is the source's thesis or conclusion regarding the work of literature?
  3. How does the source help your understanding of the work of literature?

And I suggest using this template.

 

Submit the bibliography as one file to GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Group Project on the day of your presentation. Retrieve your graded project approximately one week later in the same dropbox.

5. Group Policy

Each group member is responsible for staying connected with the group, attending meetings, actively participating in meetings, doing her delegated work, i.e., contributing her fair share to the project. In order to hold singular members accountable in a team project, each group member should individually compose and submit to GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Group Project - Individual Evaluation a paragraph that assesses their own performance and their peers' service to the assignment. If it becomes apparent that a group member did not participate (skipped meetings, didn't complete her assigned work, etc.), that member will be assessed individually rather than receive the group grade.

Individual Research Paper

You've written three papers that closely read a literary work, argued a work's significance, and evaluated a work. In groups, you've researched a work of literature and taught it to the class. For the research paper, you will interpret a work of literature using secondary sources (literary criticism) to prove your analysis. Write an in depth analysis and interpretation of an issue (some meaning that is in dispute, some interpretation that is open to debate, or a key conflict in the text) that both you and literary critics find provocative.

 

You may write your research paper on the same literary work as your group project as long as each group member proves her own distinct topic and claim; or you may choose another text which you've not previously written on, subject to professor approval.

 

Your paper should integrate at least 5 works of scholarly criticism (journal articles, books, and/or book chapters) to provide support and/or counterargument for your reading of the issue.

 

The threefold emphasis of this paper is your thoughtful appreciation of the issue at work in the text via rigorous analysis of the text and the use the secondary sources to aid and challenge your interpretation and critical judgment.

 

There will be no official peer response or first draft grade for this paper. On the one hand, you should apply the critical techniques learned from the three previous peer response sessions and professor feedbacks; on the other hand, you are encouraged to workshop drafts among your group project members and seek informal feedback from your professor.

Parameters

 

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