Assignments

Click here to download paper 2 topics & guidelines in MS Word format.

Click here for the sheet with guidelines on paper corrections and the option to do a rewrite.

Click here to download paper 1 topics & guidelines in MS Word format.

distributed 1/30: First Short Assignment

Read the first two acts of Royall Tyler’s The Contrast (pages 826-45). Then write a two-page, double-spaced response to the following question:

What do you see as the central “contrasts” Tyler wants to establish at the beginning of the play? How does Tyler establish pairs of characters as “foils” or contrasts to one another? What do such contrasts reveal about Tyler’s view of American national culture? How do such contrasts illuminate Tyler’s view of social class, for example, or of national identity?

Be sure to cite evidence for your answer. Refer to specific page numbers and specific passages.

A couple of tips: The language of Tyler’s play may be unfamiliar to you, and you may be tempted to think that you need to know something about the eighteenth century to understand him. Let me assure you that you don’t have to! Don’t sweat the historical context. Also, don’t worry about finding “right” answers. You are insightful and should trust your instincts, but you should test them against the text to make sure the text sustains your impressions. Whatever happens, you’ll have interesting things to say.

Your response is due Thursday, February 1, at the beginning of class.

distributed 2/6: Second Short Assignment

Using one of her poems, discuss how Wheatley negotiates her position as an African-American poet. This discussion should be at least one double-spaced page.

Your response is due Thursday, February 8, at the beginning of class.

distributed 2/8: Third Short Assignment

Whitman’s vocabulary is often unfamiliar to us, but it is unfamiliar for many different reasons. Sometimes he uses obsolete words; at other times he coins neologisms. Sometimes the words come from specific disciplines, at other times from slang. The goal of this inquiry is to understand how and why Whitman uses the vocabulary he does. The class will be divided into two groups.

To do this assignment, you will need to use the Oxford English Dictionary and/or the Dictionary of Americanisms. For the OED, you can either go online or go to the library. Since it is much easier to go online, it is to your advantage to familiarize yourself with the procedures for accessing these reference guides electronically. To do this, you will need a student ID and a library bar code. If you do not have a bar code, go to the circulation desk at Healey to obtain one. Once you have gone to the library web page (www.lib.umb.edu), first look for the heading “Electronic Resources,” and select “Databases and Indexes.” On the next page, select “Oxford English Dictionary.” After you enter your barcode information, you will have access to the OED.

If you cannot use the OED online, go to the reference stacks on the Fourth Floor of Healey. The volumes have the call number PE1625 .O87 1989. For the Dictionary of Americanisms, go to the reference stacks on the Fourth Floor of Healey. The volume has the call number PE2835 .D5 1966.

GROUP A (last names A through M): 

1. As you read “Proto-Leaf” and “Walt Whitman,” mark words which are unfamiliar to you, as well as familiar words which Whitman uses in unfamiliar ways.
2. Select a single page from Whitman’s poems. It should be a page which contains many words that you have marked. Begin by choosing the vocabulary to be analyzed in that section: you can omit “function” words such as articles and prepositions, focusing on “content” words instead, such as words which he uses in unusual ways.
3. Make a list of these “content” words which appear on the page you have chosen to analyze.
4. Select at least five of these words for further analysis. If you cannot find enough unfamiliar words on the page you have selected, you can also include familiar ones.
5. Record information about these words (five or more) from the Oxford English Dictionary or the Dictionary of Americanisms: the language origin, earliest date of written use, and the meaning which Whitman seems to be using. If he seems to be using the term in a different sense, note that fact.
6. After you have recorded all of this information and presented it in the form of a list or table, write a paragraph which offers a conclusion based on the information you have gathered. 

GROUP B (last names N through Z):

1. As you read “Proto-Leaf” and “Walt Whitman,” mark words which you suspect may be specialized terminology.
2. Select a category into which you could fit some of the specialized terms you have collected. It is up to you to select your own category. Here is a partial list of categories which appear in these poems: Anatomy and Biology, Flora and Fauna, Geography (especially unfamiliar terms), Foreign-Language Terminology, Military Terms, Music, Nautical Terms, Printing, Religion.
3. Make a list of some of the vocabulary which relate to your category. Not all of these specialized terms need be unfamiliar. For example, while Whitman uses the unfamiliar anatomical word “galls” on page 35, he also uses the anatomical terms “neck” and “ankles” in the same line. Include a page number for each word.
4. Select at least five of these words for further analysis, regardless of whether they are familiar or unfamiliar.
5. Record information about these words (five or more) from the Oxford English Dictionary or the Dictionary of Americanisms: the language origin, earliest date of written use, and the meaning which Whitman seems to be using. If he seems to be using the term in a different sense, note that fact.
6. After you have recorded all of this information and presented it in the form of a list or table, write a paragraph which offers a conclusion based on the information you have gathered.

Due Thursday, February 15, at the beginning of class.

Note: The assignment scheduled for Week Four (Melville) has been cancelled.

distributed 2/20: Website Assignment

For the rest of the semester, the “Short Assignment” part of your graded work for this course will consist of posts to the class portfolio pages on our class website. You might initially feel some anxiety about making your writing available to other people in the class. However, I expect that the opportunity to express your comments, interpretations, and questions in the non-stressful format of the website will give you a more comfortable sense of the ways you might approach our course texts. Becoming a frequent reader of others’ writing for the same context and purposes can enable you to become more careful readers of your own.

If for whatever reason you cannot participate in this assignment, let me know immediately so that I can get you started on an alternative assignment submitting response papers like those we have been doing.

Accessing the Class Portfolio Page

To log in, you must first go to the class website we have been using. The complete URL is http://www.litandwriting.umb.edu/engl206-2/spg07/home.htm. I usually find it easiest to go to our web portal for English courses (www.litandwriting.umb.edu), and then select the right semester and then the right course number. When you find our class website, click on “Writing Room.” This is where you will log in.

Setting Up an Account

In order to do these assignments, you need (1) an e-mail address; and (2) a computer with a connection to the internet. You DO NOT need a special campus connection. (If you don’t have a computer or prefer to work on campus, there are two labs available in Healey Library. Check hours and locations at http://www.umb.edu/it/tech/labs/hours.html.)

The reason I’ve been asking you for your e-mail addresses is that I need to enter you into our class database before you can post your work to the site. The first part of your e-mail address (as it appears under Student Profiles) will serve as your username for the course. For example, if your email is james.joyce@yahoo.com, then your username will be “james.joyce”. This is case sensitive, so make sure your Caps Lock is off. As you can see, your e-mail address does not need to be a UMB account.

As already stated, your username and password will be entered on the part of the course website called “Writing Room.” Your password is the last four digits of your UMB student ID number. Because I entered these numbers manually, it is possible that I made a mistake which would prevent you from logging in. Write me if that is the case.

If you have not given me your e-mail address, you must write me at leonard.vonmorze@umb.edu so that I can enter you into the database. If you find that the address is listed incorrectly, let me know.

Posting Your Comments

After you have logged in, you will be able to post your assignments to the board. If you like, you will also be able to customize your account by posting a picture and/or extra information about yourself. You are NOT obliged to post any such information. I am fully committed to your privacy. As soon as the remaining members of the class have been added to the database, the entire site will be protected by a passcode. The username and passcode for the site are _____________________________.

After you post an assignment, it will become visible to everyone on the Class Portfolio page. To find the discussions posted so far, click on Class Portfolio when you come to the main page.

You will see that any new post must include an assignment number. These assignment numbers are as follows:

Requirements:

1. STARTING ONE THREAD (minimum). As you can see from the table above, each of you will begin one discussion thread. This thread can be begun at any time before the date given. These “starters” should consist of responses to the course text comprising at least 100 words. These responses may consist of comments, interpretations, questions, and so forth. They should be broad enough to generate some response, but not so broad that they could be answered without reading the course text being addressed.

Since you may take some time writing these responses, it is important for thread starters, and indeed for everyone, to TYPE YOUR WORK IN A WORD-PROCESSING OR SIMPLE TEXT PROGRAM FIRST. Not only will the site time out after 30 minutes, preventing you from posting your work, but it will also delete anything you’ve written if you try to click back to the page after pressing the “Post” button.

2. PARTICIPATING IN FIVE DISCUSSIONS (minimum). In addition to starting one discussion thread, everyone is required to contribute to at least FIVE discussions. These cannot be simply the last five assignments; you must contribute at least twice before spring break. Your comments do not need to stay strictly “on topic.” For example, if a thread starter notes a specific difficulty he or she had with the reading, it would be entirely appropriate for you to reply with a comment noting another difficulty you might have had. If you wish, you can also start new discussions of your own.

A comment MUST maintain a friendly and tactful tone. You can delete your first posts to a thread, but you CANNOT delete your comments. I don’t want you to say something to another person that you will regret for the rest of the semester. You may criticize others’ points of view; but always remember to do so in a manner that turns us back to the text under discussion. Needless to say, I will not tolerate any kind of personal attack or bigotry.

If you’d like to revise a first post, you must first delete it. When doing this, take care to see that no one has already commented on it, because deleting your post will also delete any responses.

The requirements for this assignment are meant to allow you to choose when inspiration strikes you. You can start your thread long before the deadline, and you can comment on just those issues you choose. Above all, enjoy interacting with other people in the course.

Paper 1 topics - distributed 2/27

1. Both Royall Tyler and Walt Whitman seem concerned with the problem of establishing an emergent American national identity. Some of the devices for securing the social compact we considered in both writers included the use of romantic courtship and passion as a national allegory of how Americans came together into one union. Another device was the use of a distinctively American vernacular. And, finally, both writers had to carve out a sense of authorship defined by its relevance to a new reading public. How do Tyler and Whitman establish American national identity? You can examine one of the three ideas just suggested, or invent your own. Where and how in their works is social unity established? Are there also moments in which social boundaries are transgressed? What larger “One” does Whitman, for instance, wish to create from the “Many” he speaks of? How do Tyler and Whitman relate to their American audience (Tyler’s prologue, or Whitman’s address to the “you”)? (Where and how does the “I” of Whitman’s poem speak of merging with the “you”?)
2. A variation on topic #1 would be to focus on American writing about the Civil War instead of the early American republic. How does Whitman’s thinking about national unity change during the Civil War? Can you make comparisons between the poems “Walt Whitman” and “The Wound-Dresser,” for instance? Is the meaning of sympathy (i.e., the ability to exchange positions with another) the same in his pre-Civil War and Civil War poems? What connections can be drawn between Whitman’s and Melville’s representations of the war? How do Whitman and Melville acknowledge, explain, or sympathize with the forces of disunity?
3. The distinction between the public and private spheres was an influential way of defining gender experience through the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries, because women were generally forced to adhere to rigidly defined “functions” in the home while men moved throughout both public and private society (but were also thought to belong in the public realm of business). Emily Dickinson’s poems and letters defy (but also sometimes celebrate) women’s association with the private realm, while Melville’s Bartleby reflects the extreme of male experience in the workplace. Do the private and public appear to have a gender in Dickinson and Melville’s work? Where are men and women most “free”? What are the issues at stake in Dickinson’s representation of marriage and Melville’s representation of bachelorhood? Are there are continuities between the two writers as well as differences? What alternatives does Dickinson find to the values associated with marriage, and what ethic does Melville oppose to the ethic of Wall Street (though, for instance, the New Testament echoes in the story)?
4. The elegy (a poem mourning a death) has a long history in American literature. As mentioned in class, the majority of Wheatley’s poems are elegies (for instance, “On the Death of Rev. Mr. George Whitefield”; note also the ending of “To…the Earl of Dartmouth”), and most of the Civil War poems we are reading by Whitman (“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” as well as several shorter poems in Connaroe) as well as those by Dickinson qualify as elegies. Choose a couple of elegies, and then use the following questions as starting points for your reflections: What do you think is the aim of the elegies? What difference does the object of the elegy—for example, a public versus a private figure—make for the content of the poems? Does mourning the dead allow the poet to work through his or her feelings, or does the poem leave some of those feelings unresolved?
5. The meaning and significance of “race” was hotly contested in American literature before the Civil War. Analyze the representation of race in one or two of our texts (the clearest examples would be Wheatley’s poems or Melville’s Benito Cereno). Do these writers seem to think that racial difference is only “skin deep” or does it have a greater meaning in their work? How does the issue of imitation complicate our understanding of racial difference? For example, how do(es) Wheatley and/or Melville play with images of whiteness and blackness? Can Babo’s masquerade shed light on Wheatley’s rhetorical humility?

Paper 2 topics - distributed 4/12

                                                                                                   English 206/2 – Spr ’07

PAPER #2 will be five to six pages, double spaced. Essays that analyze more than one text effectively may be eligible for the Writing Proficiency Portfolio required of most undergraduates. Due Tuesday, May 15, in class. NO LATE PAPERS ACCEPTED AFTER THE DAY OF THE FINAL EXAM.

You should think of your audience as a person who has read the piece of prose and/or poetry you have chosen, yet wants to discover something about the text that he or she may not have noticed in reading it, while never giving up the right to disagree with you.

1. How does capitalism shape the lives of characters in The House of Mirth? What characteristic features of capitalism, such as money, exchange, and risk, may be seen in their inner lives? Do these forces affect both sexes in the same way? To what extent is the novel Wharton’s critique of a specific social class, and to what extent does it attain a broader critique of American capitalism?

2. What kinds of power (“hard” or “soft,” for instance) exist in the worlds of The House of Mirth and/or Sula? Who’s at the bottom, and who’s at the top? Who wields these forms of power, and who suffers from their exercise? How may one and the same character be both powerful and powerless? Does the author’s or authors’ language help us to understand the ambiguous nature of power? Examine specific examples.

3. Produce a theory of Hughes’s poetic aesthetic, based on the examples you have in the anthology edited by Conarroe, and explain why such a theory might be important or innovative. For example, how do Hughes’s use of dramatic personae and the vernacular create the sense of a body speaking? Why might it be important to have an embodied speaker, rather than a completely impersonal “I”? Why might this technique be important to an African-American or other ethnic literatures?

4. Pynchon’s novel might bewilder us because we do not get information in a straightforward way. No fact that might help us to unlock the novel’s secrets or “unknowns”—Pierce Inverarity’s intentions, the historicity of the Tristero, Maxwell’s Demon, etc.—is presented without ambiguity. Choose a particular mystery, theme, or concept in the novel, and trace its significance. (For example, what do we know about Pierce Inverarity? about the Tristero? etc.). Then consider the process of meaning-making itself. What tone is used—comic, tragic, satiric, etc.—to transmit this information to us? Does the process of meaning-making result in a democratic novel, where we as readers are left with the possibility of making connections? Or does it result in a completely random world?

5. The power of imagination to make meanings could be seen as defining the human mind: we might see Stevens and Pynchon in agreement here. (“Why do you imagine golden birds,” when you have real ones? asks Stevens in stanza 7 of the “Blackbird” poem. “Shall I project a world?” wonders Oedipa at the beginning of chapter 4 of Lot 49.) Examine Stevens’s and/or Pynchon’s text(s) in the light of the desire to make meaning. Why do the characters or poetic personae need to make meanings in the world? What might it have to do with the loss of religious belief (in a divinity)? How do Stevens and/or Pynchon evaluate the imaginative process of making meanings? Is it completely positive? or dangerous? What kind of knowledge does the imagination give us access to?

6. Giving each chapter a date, Morrison clearly intends Sula to be a novel about change over the course of time. Interpret Sula as a historical novel. What do you see as Morrison’s evaluation of the past? Be specific. Are there places where the novel’s tone seems nostalgic to you, or does it see progress in history? How might the novel be seen as an evaluation of the era of racial segregation?

7. In Sula Morrison plays with familiar oppositions, such as good versus evil, reality versus fantasy, science versus magic, and so forth. Through a close examination of Morrison’s text, evaluate the degree to which it may be seen as a challenge to binary thinking. Propose your own oppositions and evaluate how they structure, or are unstructured by, Morrison’s novel. How, for instance, might Sula and Nel be understood both as opposites and as doubles?

8. Come up with your own topic (submit it to me for approval at least a week before the essay deadline). You must write on one or two of these authors: Wharton, Hughes, Stevens, Pynchon, Morrison.