LITR 4332: American Minority Literature

Sample Student Final Exam Answers 2002

COPY OF FINAL EXAM 2002

LITR 4332: American Minority Literature, UHCL, fall 2002—final exam

Date: 10 December 2002; Time: 2 hours & 50 minutes

·        If you take the exam in-class, you have from 4pm until 6:50pm.

·        If you take the exam by email, you have between 3:45 and 8pm to complete the exam, but spend only 2 hours & 50 minutes total. Keep a log of when you start, stop, or pause.

Instructions

·        Open-book and open-notebook.

·        Choose either the “Default” or “Creative” option.

·        For either option, answer all three questions. (You may answer them in any order, but put the question number before the answer.)

·        Write a complete essay in response to each question.

·        Spend 45-60 minutes on each question or essay.

·        Abbreviated titles welcome; e. g., Bless Me, Ultima > Ultima

·        No need to list page numbers for familiar quotations.

·        Avoid copying out long quotations. Summarize passages. Quote only the most powerful words or phrases. Comment on quotations.

·        Since this is an open-book and open-notebook exam, the better essays should not just reproduce course themes but relate them to examples from the texts.

·        Since this is a timed exercise, you won’t be penalized for careless mistakes. However, chronic problems like run-ons, fragments, failure to use apostrophes, and long, disorganized paragraphs will affect the overall grade.

Special Instructions for in-class students

·        Write in blue or black ink in a bluebook or on paper of your choice. No need to erase what you don’t want read—just draw a line through.

Special Instructions for email students

Do both of the following

·         Type out your essays in a word processing file and attach the file to an email to me at whitec@uhcl.edu

·         Paste the contents of your answer directly into an email message and send it to me at whitec@uhcl.edu. This option is especially preferable if you're writing in Microsoft Works. Or save your word processing file in a “text only” or “read” format and send it to me in an attachment.

If you work within designated time-lines, I should acknowledge receipt of your exam through email by sometime in the afternoon of the 11^th. If you haven't heard from me by that evening, check the email address. If still no response, leave me a phone message at 281 283 3380.

Content and organization: Students are offered a choice of exams. Each features 3 essay questions. Please indicate which option you’re choosing at the front or top of your answers.

Option 1 (Default Option) Answer all three questions below.

1. Referring to at least one Amerind origin story, to American Indian Stories, and to The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, discuss how Native Americans qualify as a minority culture and how their cultural narrative of “Loss and Survival” responds to this situation.

2. Referring to “The Miraculous Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe,” to Bless Me, Ultima, and to The House on Mango Street, discuss how Mexican Americans may or may not qualify as a minority culture and how their cultural narrative of “Ambivalence and a New Identity” responds to this situation.

3. Three sample poems are provided below. Analyze one, both thematically and stylistically.

·        Thematically, how does the poem exhibit minority themes, particularly those of the minority group represented? (gender and class themes also possible)

·        Stylistically, how do these themes benefit from being written as poetry rather than as simple prose?

Option 2 (Creative Option) Answer all three questions below.

1. Referring to at least one Native American origin story, to American Indian Stories, to The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and to at least one poem from the poetry presentations, discuss how Native Americans qualify as a minority culture and how their cultural narrative of “Loss and Survival” responds to this situation.

2. Referring to “The Miraculous Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe,” to Bless Me, Ultima, to The House on Mango Street, and to at least one poem from the poetry presentations, discuss how Mexican Americans may or may not qualify as a minority culture and how their cultural narrative of “Ambivalence and a New Identity” responds to this situation.

3. Andrew Wiget writes that Native American origin or creation stories are “complex symbolic tales that typically dramatize the tribal explanation of the origin of the earth and its people; establish the central relationships among people, the cosmos or universe, and the other creatures (flora and fauna) of the earth; distinguish gender roles and social organization for the tribe . . . . “

Discuss and evaluate the “origin stories” of our course’s three ethnic groups in terms of Wiget’s description.

·        African American origin story = the slave narratives

·        Native American origin stories = stories mentioned or reproduced on handout

·        Mexican American origin story = “The Virgin of Guadalupe”

Also feel free to consider The Declaration of Independence, immigrant stories, and other texts from the course. What do we learn about the minorities’ “social contracts” from reading “origin or creation stories?”

Poems for default option, question #3

“in small town usa” by E. Ethelbert Miller (African American)

in small town usa

it doesn’t matter if you can count

all the black people on one hand

and have a finger for yourself

it’s 7 am and you look out the window

of your hotel and there’s an old black

woman coming to work to scrub and clean

and this woman reminds you of your mother

tired but getting to work early and on time

never late as you close the curtain

and climb back into bed knowing you are

not alone and this woman is nearby

getting things ready for you and when you

leave your room you make your bed

and fold your towels hoping in this

small way to make it easier for this

woman you now pass in the hall

and you both wonder who will speak first

during this moment when being black is

all there is.

**************

“Fooling God” by Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Chippewa)

(excerpts)

I must become small and hide where he cannot reach.

I must become dull and heavy as an iron pot.

I must be tireless as rust and bold as roots

growing through the locks on doors

and crumbling the cinderblocks

of the foundations of his everlasting throne. . . .

Perhaps if I invoke Clare, the patron saint of television. Perhaps if I become the images

passing through the cells of a woman’s brain.

I must become very large and block his sight.

I must be sharp and impetuous as knives.

I must insert myself into the bark of his apple trees,

and cleave the bones of his cows. I must be the marrow

that he drinks into this cloud-wet body.

I must be careful and laugh when he laughs.

I must turn down the covers and guide him in.

I must fashion his children out of Playdough, blue, pink, green,

I must pull them from between my legs

and set them before the television.

I must hide my memory in a mustard grain

so that he’ll search for it over time until time is gone.

I must lose myself in the world’s regard and disparagement.

I must remain this person and be no trouble.

None at all. So he’ll forget.

I’ll collect dust out of reach,

a single dish from a set, a flower made of felt,

a tablet the wrong shape to choke on.

I must become essential and file everything

under my own system,

so we can lose him and his proofs and adherents.

I must be a doubter in a city of belief . . . .

**********

“As Life Was Five” by Jimmy Santiago Baca (Mexican American)