2 parts to midterm exam

• Essay of 6-8 paragraphs on 1-2 objectives & 3-4 texts
• Research plan exploring likely-possible opics for research posts (prepared beforehand? integrate to extended essay?)

Format: Open-book, open-notebook

2 options for taking exam

• in-class: 4-6:50pm during class period 9 March; write in ink in bluebook or on notebook paper (fronts and backs of pages okay; single-spacing okay). In-class midterms are graded separately from emails.
• email: 3-4 hours anytime after class on Tuesday 2 March and before 3pm Friday, 12 March; write in Word or Rich Text Format file; attach and paste into email message to whitec@uhcl.edu (or reply to my email)

Email students may take breaks and write parts in installments + review & revision.

Attendance not required on 9 March unless you take the exam in-class.

Advance preparations:

Complete your Research Plan ahead of time or compose it while writing your exam.
  

Organize and draft your essay answer as much as helpful, but do actual writing in approximate time limits. Always proofread before sending.

Welcome to take drafts to Writing Center for help. Also consult with instructor or other mentors. Use common sense in managing conflicting advice.
 

To complete the midterm, you need  topics for your essay and your research posts. These 3 topics may connect, or they may be distinct (within course parameters).

Audience: a member of our class, someone starting the next semester of this class, or maybe even your family or other teachers, so they can know what you’re learning. Of course your main audience is me, the instructor, but my response may address how much you wrote for the class as opposed to talking about whatever you would have said before the class started or as if you hadn't been there.

Topic development

Describe your learning experience in terms of course objective 1. To learn about early North American and U.S.texts and cultures and make them matter now.

To make your texts matter, refer to 1-2 course objectives, your literary preferences, and what parts of the texts connected to your and the course's interests.

Or start with 1-2 texts and build from what worked in them to what works for you in the course. Connect to 1-2 objectives, develop texts' meanings, involve other texts.

References:

1-2 Objectives: you may only cover part of an objective, but use its terms and develop its idea(s). If you can connect to other objectives, all the better. Don’t just mention the objective(s), but work with them—reconnect and extend.

3-4 Texts from course till midterm: you may cover 1-2 texts in more detail than others. Most important: connect the texts to each other—compare subjects, themes, characters. Texts may include 1 poem or film highlight.

Within these limits, develop your own emphases or discuss with me or others like the Writing Center.

Requirement: Your essay must have a title.

Priority: Write about something you care about or can make yourself care about. Develop your interest to match, vary, and extend the course’s interests.

Possibilities—you may use, vary, or ignore:

Creation / Origin stories (obj. 2)

The Puritan generations (obj. 2)

Unity / diversity: who tells the story of America? (obj. 4—which America to teach?)

Voices and images of women and ethnicities (obj. 4)

How to tell a single story about a diverse America? (obj. 6)

Material and spiritual aspects of American culture

What's surprising and familiar about early American literature

The 1600s & 1700s, Religion & Enlightenment

Standard advice:

Do not copy out long passages from texts.  Quote briefly; otherwise simply remind your reader of events, characters, situations in texts.  No need for page documentation unless it’s something surprising. Refer to texts by full title and full name of author the first time; abbreviations welcome thereafter.

Organize your essay around a central theme or problem. Keep returning to it and developing it as you write and revise. 

Final steps:

Review & edit your essay. Make it better.

Emphasize your main points. Connect ideas. Develop examples.

Remember what teachers have told you about your writing.

Examinations are not just chances to show what you already knew or to wish you’d known more beforehand—they test learning.

See grading standards below.

Rest & edit before sending. Surface quality is part of your grade. If you have trouble with spelling, word endings, punctuation, etc., get help from a mentor or tutor as long as they explain changes.

research proposal

For the research component of this course, you will write two “research posts”--not traditional essays but reports in which you organize knowledge you gather on a self-selected topic.

This proposal is to make you start thinking about your research post topics—the first one’s due 22-29 March, just after spring break.

Again you have a lot of choice—your priority should be to write on something you want to learn about that connects to our course.

For your proposal, either write 2-3 paragraphs explaining your likely choices or add a couple paragraphs to your essay.

Parameters:

Your topic should stay within the time-boundaries of our course, from 1492 to the 1820s. You may connect to materials beyond our course limits, as the course does with Poe, Hawthorne, The Crucible, etc., but your learning must bear on Early American Literature.

You are not limited to authors, texts, or cultures in the syllabus—you could do more research on American Indian literature, the Founders, the Pilgrims and Puritans, the Spanish or French explorers, women writers, early poetry or drama, or particular authors like Bradstreet, Paine, Jefferson, Abigail Adams, or any other names that catch your interest.

Your topic will likely change at least a little as you do research. Just start, and see what you learn, then shape the report on that.

If your topic changes drastically, let me know so I won’t be surprised and think the wrong things when I see it.

More on research posts.

Review of research posts from other semesters or courses—what did you see that helped you understand the assignment?

Most common problems in midterms & research plans:

Students don’t write enough—they write what they have to, then stop, instead of pushing their ideas another step.

Students ignore the class and blah-blah as they would have whether they took the class or not, recycling old ideas from other classes or hallway conversations (which you can use as long as you connect to this class with them). Show what you've learned--even if you haven't thought of it till now, work up some learning.

Students fear I'll bust them on documentation or double-spacing instead of content, organization, and surface style.

Forgetting or ignoring objectives and course terms

Forgetting or failing to proofread and edit before submission

Grading criteria:

general guidelines for exam grades