“All biographies like all autobiographies like all narratives tell one story in place of another.”
Helen Cixous (Rootprints, 71)

All writing assignments are due at the beginning of class (unless otherwise specified) on the day listed on the schedule. Late papers will be penalized one letter grade per day late. Please plan ahead—computers and printers are notorious for swallowing papers printed out at the last minute!

Weekly Assignments:

On-line Discussion Questions (DQ)

Roughly once a week, I will post a discussion question on Collab for you to consider and answer before 8 am the day of class. (See schedule for specific dates.) These questions are designed to prime and focus class discussion. Ideally, these will also provide material and direction for your essays as you discover topics you find interesting. I don't expect you to write mini-essays, just to provide thoughtful responses to the question that we can follow up on in class.

The following additional instructions are for the days when you are responsible for posting a question:
Throughout the semester, you will have the opportunity to post your own DQ. For the day(s) you are responsible for posting question(s), post the DQ by noon the day before the reading is due, to give your classmates time to read and respond.

Reading Journal: Your reading journals will be a place to explore ideas concerning our readings and discussions without worrying too much about being evaluated. Your journal is a place to experiment and to ask yourself, "How accurately can I explain or describe this idea?" The point of the journal is to develop a regular, habitual practice of figuring out what you think of our course materials. If you add to your journal consistently and regularly, you'll find that your thinking, your ability to make connections and to have insights will deepen. Ideally, the journal will also provide material and direction for your essays.

Click here for a full description of DQ & Reading Journal Entries

Major Assignments

Essays: You will write four essays of varying length. These essays should be typed, double-spaced in a reasonable font (at least 250 words per page), meet the minimum page requirement, and have an appropriate title. No title page is necessary, but a works cited page is, when appropriate, and should follow MLA format (links to online resources on MLA format can be found below in the Analysis Paper description). Download the Writing Guidelines and Reminders sheet for more general information on writing academic essays.

Essay #1: Close Reading (2.5-3 pg, double-spaced, 11-12 point font)
For this essay, you’ll concentrate on a short (100-300 word) passage from one of the readings. The close reading essay focuses your powers of observation. In it you should demonstrate that you recognize literary devices in a selected passage, make an argument about a passage’s significance, and show how the author employs the literary devices to craft meaning in the passage.

For Essay #1, be sure to:

1. Download the Close Reading Checklist here. Use this document as a guide to help you as you work through the passage. You do NOT have to answer every question in your paper.
2. Include the passage and citation information at the top of the page.
3. Analyze the passage, revealing how the author employs the literary devices we discuss in class (see checklist).
4. Make an argument (with a thesis) about the meaning of the passage, using the literary devices as evidence.

Essay #2: Analysis (4-5 pg) and Essay #3 (4-5 pg)
From the Greek, analyein ("to break up"), analysis literally means to separate into its component parts. When you analyze, you break the whole into parts so that you might see the whole differently. As such, an analysis paper will consider the parts of your topic and then examine how these parts relate to each other or to the whole work. To write an analysis paper, then, you'll want to break the work down by examining particular literary elements, imagery, diction, tone, point of view, themes or motifs, and so on. In short, you'll want to ask: What are the components of the work, and how do these components contribute to the theme I am writing about? How do they contribute to the work as a whole?

Essays #2 and #3 should

• have a thesis that a) makes a reasonable, debatable argument/claim (rather than an observation or opinion). An observation merely points to the text or to images, themes or topics in the text. An argument tells your reader how to interpret these images or themes and why it is important to do so in this way. An argumentative thesis, that is, springs from a question or theme you find interesting in the text and answers the questions “So What?” and “Who cares?”
• meet the minimum page/word requirement (4 pgs or 1000); include page numbers and a word count at the end.
• be typed, double-spaced and in a 11-12 point font
• be stapled or clipped together (please do not just dog-ear or fold the corners of the pages; loose pages have a tendancy to get eaten by my work bag.)
• have an appropriate title. No title page is necessary, but a works cited page is, when appropriate (i.e., when you refer to more than 1 text or texts other than the course readings).
• follow MLA format, found in the MLA Handbook, 7th edition. Some information can be found online at the following websites:

  Quick Reference to MLA formatting at Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab)
  Researching in the Humanities (Click on Menu for finding or citing sources in MLA style)
  Frequently Asked Questions about MLA style.

These essays should focus on aspects you find interesting, so I won't hand out specific topics or theses ideas. We will spend some time in class discussing topics you are interested in as well as how to develop these into a thesis. I am also happy to talk with you about your ideas, and ask that you each send me your thesis before the paper is due (see schedule for date--earlier is always acceptable).

I am most interested in hearing your interpretations and arguments about the works. Your essay should have a point and stick to it, make good and consistent use of evidence from the text to support and develop that argument, develop an idea or answer a question that interests you and lead to a conclusion that satisfies you and that is persuasive to your reader. Your reader doesn't have to agree, but should be able to see from your essay and the quotations and examples you've used why you reached that interpretation.

To borrow from Steve Railton’s “Writing the Essays” webpage: In any case you should make sure that before you begin your final draft, you know exactly what its argument is. You should be able to tell a friend, in twenty-five words or less, not just the general topic of your essay, but the exact point you're going to argue throughout. Once you get to this point, and know the conclusion you'll be trying to make in the last paragraph, then you’ll know how to begin, how to decide what to include and leave out, etc.

Note also that a sophisticated literary analysis will address counter-arguments or secondary arguments. It will include such statements as (though not necessarily written so directly): “Some interpret this as X, I argue we should instead interpret it as Y, because…” or “They say X, I say Y” or even “Often this passage is taken to mean X. A more interesting reading is Y, because…”

Final Portfolio: The final portfolio will include

• A staged assignment building toward and including Essay #4 (5-7 pg). For Essay #4, you'll write about an autobiography of your choosing -- either one we read an excerpt from for class or one that we haven't read for class.
• Your choice of "Best Example" of Discussion Question post & Reading Journal entry + a short (100-200 word) explanation of why you think these are the best examples of your work

On the last full week of class, we'll hold a Class Symposium, for which your team will develop a 8-minute presentation that connects your third essays and places them in the framework of the course. Your presentation can be straightforward (each person reading sections of her paper and explaining how it relates to pieces before or after) or creative (you can use multimedia, dramatic readings, or some such), as long as it

• engages the class,
• compares or contrasts your outside works with each other, and
• compares or contrasts them with other major themes, literary conventions, or aspects of autobiography or memoir that we've talked about in relation to the course readings.

Here's how it will work: After you turn in Paper #3, you'll form groups of 2-3. Your group will have time in class to discuss your ideas and begin thinking about how your analysis compares to their own.

You will work together with your group to find interesting comparisons and contrasts between the works and to decide how to present these ideas to the rest of the class. As a group, you will collaboratively come up with title and abstract (a 250-300 word description) that explains how your ideas fit together, and post them on Collab for the class before the Symposium.

After each presentation, there will be 5 minutes for the audience to ask you questions about your ideas. Although it may sound intimidating, in my experience, this is a rewarding experience. You'll have a chance to pull together your ideas about the works you've read in the course, and you'll get the opportunity to explain your ideas in question/answer sessions at the end of the presentations.