Take-home Midterm Exam (due within 72 hours of 2 October)

Length: 5-7 typed double-spaced pages (equivalent).

Transmission: You must email your exam to me at whitec@uhcl.edu. Your submission will be posted to the webpage.

Topic: Develop an aspect of one of the course objectives.  Describe how two or three early American texts from our assigned readings through Cooper exemplify the development of an aspect of Romanticism and how their contributions converge in The Last of the Mohicans, making it a classic or normative text of American Romanticism.

            The above paragraph is the formal description of the mid-term assignment—that is, you will not be given another description of the assignment, though of course we can discuss it.  The most successful versions of this exam tend to focus on a rather specific aspect of an objective, such as gothic, the sublime, nature, the Romantic hero/ine, the romance narrative, etc. You may focus more specifically than the objective indicates—that is, analyze an aspect of the gothic or a specific feature of the romance or of Romantic spirit, for instance.

            You are required to review and make one citation of one of the earlier course midterms posted on the webpage. The only difference may be that summer offerings of LITR 5535 do not read The Last of the Mohicans. You are also welcome to cite external sources, though this assignment does not have a research requirement. A Works Cited is not required. You are expected to incorporate major ideas from class lecture and discussion. A member of this class should recognize your ideas and references as relevant to our course as it has developed thus far. You can’t simply express the ideas you walked in with; you must demonstrate learning.