LITR 4232 American Renaissance 2012 Student Midterm Samples 3. Web Highlights: Review at least 3 posts from course website's Model Assignments (4-6 paragraphs)

Valerie Mead

Whitman’s Sublimity and Irving’s Gothicism: Things I Learned from Model Essays

Every student learns a great deal from doing the assigned readings as well as attending and making a point of interactively participating in class discussions and lectures.  However, when you are a student, there is always a little something left to be desired, no matter how well you do all of the things mentioned above.  This is usually noticed around the time this said student is about to start an assignment, whether it be a really serious one, like a midterm, or one of lesser importance, like an analytical essay.  Students who feel confident in themselves only have to start such an assignment to begin to question this confidence, and things truly begin to fall apart from there.  Students mainly start questioning themselves because they are typically unsure as to exactly what it is that the professor is looking for with this assignment, especially as it pertains to grading.  In order to answer our questions (without bothering the professor or the tutoring centers) and pacify our fears about such issues, usually a new element has to be added to the situation.  That is where the idea of looking at previous student’s assignments becomes practical and even beneficial.  These model assignments give the students a fairly decent idea of what the professor expects of your content, depth, analysis, and tone of your written assignments by showing you an assignment that he or she obviously values and thinks is worthy of showing as an example of what is wanted.  These model assignments give us information that we otherwise would not have had access to, and they help students be more confident of their work, which is why they are such an unexpected and welcome surprise.

Matt Chavez’s essay on “Whitman on Sublimity” shows how Whitman and his works are sublime, and that really caught my attention.  This interested me from the beginning because I am still having some trouble fully comprehending some of the aspects of the sublime, which in itself is a crucial element of American Renaissance literature, especially depending on the specific authors and/or works one is focusing on.  I was interested in this essay because I had hoped that it would clarify some lingering issues that I have on the subject.  It was well written, focused, and easy to understand, all of which are seen as staples or basics, but do indeed play a crucial role in understanding and learning.  The language used in the essay is clear and concise, which helped me to understand what he was saying and why he felt it was important.  However, he also uses jargon that only literature majors would understand, which is important as well, because it shows that he understands the material that is being covered in class and it also gives the people reading it a chance to learn from that which he obviously understands fairly well.  Chavez takes the broader aspects of Romanticism and ties them to specific aspects of written works from that period, specifically linking the idea of the sublime with the works of Walt Whitman.  By tying in these larger issues, Chavez makes sure to let the reader know that this is relevant information to the American Renaissance, and it helped me to learn of the larger connections between them.  Most importantly, Chavez incorporated a poem by Whitman into his essay, thus using it for specific, detailed support of his statements and further cementing his points into the idea of the reader.  I learned from this essay specifically how Whitman and the sublime tie in together.  Chavez helped to clarify this issue by saying “Romanticism is about the individual’s experience, and Whitman is turned out unaccountably by his disdain for a nature which is no reflection of him, but a thing set apart…The sublimity of nature is divine in character, and the divine cannot be, nor should it be, understood. That Whitman captures so many key feature of Romanticism in so few lines is representative itself of the point Whitman makes” (Chavez, par. 4).  This particularly made the issue seem much more common and easier to comprehend, which helped me to further grasp the concept of the sublime in how it relates to American Renaissance literature as a whole and our class in general.

Another particularly informative essay for me was Brittany Fletcher’s “The Headless Boxer.”  This essay made me look at it because of the title—I knew it must have been some sort of reference to the character of the Headless Horseman in Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which I have found to be one of the most enjoyable works from the first half of this semester, and having a boxer myself made me somewhat curious as to how the title would work out.  This essay’s language is concise and clear, which is another reason I chose to read it.  There are few mentions of technical literary terms, but everything that is mentioned is broken down and explained really well.  Fletcher ties in more personal elements into the essay, relating the story to her personal fears and feelings, whereas Chavez did just the opposite.  However, I was able to relate more with Fletcher’s friendlier tone, and it was almost like we had an existing rapport going on this entire time, which made it easier to learn from her than from Chavez.  She also ties in the story’s use of language and how it relates to typical gothic elements, the latter of which I find supremely interesting.  Fletcher points out many important concepts in her essay, some of which I know and understand, others with which I am struggling.  She brings up the issue that “The whole text [Sleepy Hallow] is filled with a successful mixture of Reason and Romance,” (Fletcher, Par. 3), which is something I had not thought of sufficiently, and now realize is true.  Fletcher also brings up a concept called correspondence, which she says “is the connection between thought and the atmosphere around” (Par. 3) and explains it so that someone like myself, who has never heard it, could understand what it means and why it is relevant.  She then applies it to Sleepy Hollow and the gothic imagery that it invokes.  Her ability to tie in concepts with the works that are given really makes this an excellent essay, and I definitely learned many useful things from it.

The final essay that I choose to work on is Eric Cherrie’s “The Fall of the House of Winkle.”  I honestly chose to read this essay because the title drew me in—it referenced both Poe and Irving, two authors I highly enjoy from this period, as well as a character on The Big Bang Theory, a show I absolutely adore.  Needless to say, I was intrigued with what he had to say.  The essay does not use as common of language as Chavez or Fletcher, but focuses on the important terms and definitions used throughout the first half of this course.  This does not make it as easy to understand as the previously mentioned essays did, but there is a lot of readily accessible information that is vital to my understanding this class as well as this time period, so the little extra work was definitely worth it.  Cherrie focuses on Irving’s short story Rip Van Winkle, and how the objectives and themes of the course (and the American Renaissance in general) tie in with the story.  Cherrie explains how the gothic ties in because of the death and decay seen when Rip wakes up, something that I never connected while reading or in class.  He also points out the subtle use of the sublime from the passage he is analyzing, which is seen when Rip sees his home and neighborhood after so long and is struck with “silent awe” because of it.  Cherrie then points out that this can also be seen as a metaphor for Rip’s relationship with his wife and children.  However, the most important thing I learned from this essay was that “Rip Van Winkle—it appears to be a folk-tale without a moral. Rip betrays his familial obligation to go out and drink in the woods; as a result, he loses an unhappy marriage and becomes a wise elder in the town (a hero). However, Irving is not interested in morals; his story explores the idea of American amnesia, and America’s ability to give anybody a second chance” (Cherrie, Par. 1).  I read the story and I liked it very much, but I never did pick up on this concept.  I either did not think of it or did not read well enough, but either way, I found this point very interesting and informative.  Though I had never thought about it, after hearing his explanation, I fully agree with Cherrie’s interpretation on the subject.

 As students, sometimes we face difficulties when learning a particular topic or concept, or we often times find that we need extra help when an important exam or paper is due.  Though we do our best to read all of the assigned works and to pay attention and actively participate in class, sometimes that is not enough, and extra, outside help is needed in order for a person to learn as much as she can and do as well as she can in any given class.  This is also true for American Renaissance Literature students, which is why access to well written student sample essays is a great idea (though highly underutilized) for helping students learn.  Access to these well written essays allows the students to learn things that they could not or did not in class, and they can also help to clarify an issue you are having difficulty with.  This is true for me, as well, especially in literature courses.  Needless to say, I learned a great deal from the essays that I chose, and I can only hope that my essay is good enough to help someone else learn in the future.