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LITR 4332: American Minority Literature UHCL, spring 2004 Midterm Examination. 11 March. Format: In-class or email; open-book and open-notebook. In-class students should write in blue or black ink in a bluebook or on paper of choice and / or in spaces provided on exam sheet. Email students should work things out as they can on the exam itself or in separate files / attachments. Identify which questions or items you're answering. Email students should send the completed exam to whitec@uhcl.edu. Try both of the following · Paste the contents of the appropriate word processing file directly into the email message. ·
“Attach” your word processing file to an email message. (My computer
and programs work off of Microsoft Word 2000. If in doubt, save your word
processing file in "Rich Text Format" or a “text only” format.) Relative weight: 20% of final grade Length: Given
people's different styles, lengths vary. Generally the best exams have more
writing; less impressive exams look scanty. Time: The exam should take at least two hours to complete, but you may use the entire class period (2 hours and 50 minutes). In-class students are given the exam at 1pm, to be returned by 3:50pm. All students are emailed the exam at approximately 12:45pm, when the exam is also posted on the course webpage. Email students must email the exam by 5pm. Their time is more flexible to account for possible interruptions. However, email students should spend no more than 2 hours and 50 minutes in writing the exam, and they should keep a log indicating when they start and stop. (Pauses or interruptions are okay.) Parts
of midterm: 2 ID’s and 1 essay “Identify & Signify” ·
Highlight of a poem presented in class before midterm (One long paragraph
or two medium-length paragraphs) ·
Short essay: Compare / contrast excerpts from Bread
Givers and Slave Narrative of Olaudah Equiano as immigrant vs. minority
experience. (4-5 paragraphs) Essay question / answer
(continue below for details on each part.) “Identify
& Signify” (No choices in this section—you must write on ID#1 and ID#2.) ID
#1. Highlight of
a poem presented in class before midterm (One long paragraph or two
medium-length paragraphs) Assignment:
Identify a highlight or an important passage in a poem or poems from Unsettling
America presented before the midterm, relate the passage(s) to a course
objective, and explain the significance of the passage(s) both thematically and
poetically. Details: How to identify: ·
Identify the author, title, and page number of the poem. As far as
highlighting the specific passage of the poem, you may quote briefly and/or
mention the passage’s location (e. g., “second stanza, lines 4-8, beginning
with . . . ” etc.) Relate it to a
course objective: ·
You don’t need to write out the entire objective, but cite the number
and letter and a few keywords at least. Explain the
passage's significance both thematically and poetically. · "Thematically " means you make the passage's meaning stand out in relation to the course objective but also to other possible meanings relevant to the course. · “Poetically” means you offer some insights as to how the poem works as a poem; how does the poem make you feel the issues or problems, compared to an equivalent passage of plain prose? Consider objective 5e. “ . . . how all speakers and writers may use common devices of human language to make poetry, including narrative, poetic devices, and figures of speech.” ·
Don’t feel limited in what you may or may not do. Comparisons with
other course texts or with other courses you’ve taken are welcome, for
instance. selection: · Presenters may partly do their own poems but should also at least connect to someone else's poem ·
All students are welcome to refer to more than one poem, but don't spread
out too much. (In-class students
may write answers here and/or on the back of this sheet, or in a bluebook or on
notebook paper. All students, identify your answer as ID#1.) “Identify & Signify” ID
#2. Short essay:
Compare / contrast excerpts from Bread
Givers and Slave Narrative of Olaudah
Equiano as immigrant vs. minority experience. (4-5 paragraphs) Assignment:
Review the passages below from Yezierska’s
Bread Givers (1925) and Equiano’s Narrative
(1789) and compare and contrast them as a means of explaining this course’s
definition of a minority group versus the dominant immigrant culture. Use of webpage lecture notes:
We compared-contrasted these texts in class on January 29 and reviewed on
February 5. You’re welcome to review the web notes as well as your personal
notes, but avoid straight copying from those notes. Write your own essay with
its own priorities and insights in addition to those the class developed
together. Other Details: These passages are already “identified,” so your job
is to make them “signify” by defining the minority versus the immigrant
experience in terms primarily from our course
objective 1, “the American Dream” or immigrant story as the narrative of
the dominant culture, and how minorities may differ from that narrative. You are
welcome to involve additional objectives. Objective
1 To define the “minority
concept" as a power relationship modeled primarily by some ethnic
groups’ historical relation to the dominant American culture. 1a.
Involuntary
participation—the American Nightmare Unlike the
dominant immigrant culture, ethnic minorities did
not choose to come to America or join its dominant culture. Thus the
original "social contract" of Native Americans and African
Americans contrasts with that of European Americans, Asian Americans, or most
Latin Americans, and the consequences of "choice" or "no
choice" echo down the generations, particularly in terms of assimilation or
separation. 1b.
“Voiceless and choiceless”; “Voice = Choice” Contrast the dominant culture’s self-determination or choice through self-expression or voice, as in "The Declaration of Independence." Passages for
comparison and contrast: Selection from Yezierska’s Bread Givers (1925) . . . “Is this the way you talk to girls the minute you meet them?" I laughed back at him. With a swift glance he took in everything in my room. "Your sister was making excuses for the way you live. I think more of you for standing on your own feet. I lived worse when I ran away from home. You and I are so much alike, because I, too, wanted to make my own way in the world. And you remind me of my own beginning.". . . "Tell me about your running away." I edged my chair nearer to him, in my excited eagerness. . . . "I still see that first day when I got off the ship with my little bundle on my back. I was almost lost in the blowing snow of a freezing blizzard. Then I came upon a gang of men clearing the street with great shovels. At once, I saw that these men must be paid for their work. So I pushed myself in among them and begged for a shovel. The big, fat foreman looked down on the poor little greenhorn, wondering should he take pity on me. But before waiting for an answer, I snatched up a shovel from the stack and dug into the snow. At the end of that day, when I was paid a dollar, I felt the riches of all America in my hand. . . . "This first money, I had to pay down for a week's lodging. The next day, there was no more snow shovelling. I was hungry. I had to get work, and I didn't know where. I just walked the streets, searching people's faces, driven by hunger. Then I saw an old man struggling with his pushcart over the frozen snow. I rushed up to him, begging him with my eyes and my hands to let me help him. So he gave me the job to drive his pushcart and holler for him, 'Pay cash clothes."' "How could you manage the English words that first day P" I asked. A humorous twinkle leaped into Max's eyes. "That man knew as much about English as I. What I hollered was, 'Pay cats coals.' But my boss couldn't tell the difference. To me it was only singing a song. I didn't understand the words, but my voice was like dynamite, thundering out into the air all that was in my young heart, alone in a big city." The rest of
the storv flowed on like magic. At the end of the week he was in
business for himself. He cried the streets, "Pay cats coals,"
without even a pushcart. From all the windows, people began to look with wonder
at the strange greenhorn singer. Every day he came back to his lodging loaded
full . . . *********************** Selection from The
Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, the African (1789) “The first object that saluted my eyes when I arrived on
the coast was the sea, and a slave ship, which was then riding at anchor, and
waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, that was soon
converted into terror, which I am yet at a loss to describe, and much more the
then feelings of my mind when I was carried on board. I was immediately handled
and tossed up to see if I was sound, by some of the crew; and I was now
persuaded that I had got into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going
to kill me. Their complexions, too, differing so much from ours, their long
hair, and the language they spoke, which was very different from any I had ever
heard, united to confirm me in this belief.
Indeed such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment, that if
ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to
have exchanged my condition with the meanest slave in my own country.
When I looked round the ship too, and saw . . . a multitude of black
people, of every description, changed together, every one of their countenances
expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted my fate . . . . “Soon after we landed, there came to us Africans of all
languages. . . . I now totally lost
the small remains of comfort I had enjoyed in conversing with my countrymen . .
. . We were landed up a river a
good way from the sea, about Virginia country, where we saw few of our native
Africans, and not one soul who could talk to me.
. . . I was now exceedingly
miserable, and thought myself worse off than any of the rest of my companions,
for they could talk to each other, but I had no person to speak to that I could
understand. . . . When I came into
the room where [my master] was, I was very much affrighted at some things I saw,
and the more so, as I had seen a black woman slave as I came through the house,
who was cooking the dinner, and the poor creature was cruelly loaded with
various kinds of iron machines; she had one particularly on her head, which
locked her mouth so fast that she could scarcely speak . . . which I afterwards
learned was called the iron muzzle.” (In-class students
may write answers here and/or on the back of this sheet, or in a bluebook or on
notebook paper. All students, identify your answer as ID#2.) Essay
question / answer ·
Write one essay (usually app.
6-8 paragraphs, depending on paragraph length) featuring 3 course texts
based on one of the questions listed. Brief overview:
Write one complete essay based
on one of the following three questions. The questions may overlap, so
don’t be too concerned if, in answering one question, you involve material
that may apply to another question as well. It should be clear, however, which
question you’re answering or focusing on. Begin your essay by listing “Essay
Topic (1, 2, or 3).” ESSAY TOPIC 1: What is
the relationship of “African American Literature and Culture” to “American
Literature and Culture?” ESSAY TOPIC 2: Compare
and contrast The Dream in African American Literature and the American Dream. ESSAY TOPIC 3: Compare
and contrast two or more texts in African American literature to develop a theme
of your choice. Textual
requirements: Your essay must make extensive reference to at least
three texts from our required course readings: Martin Luther King, “I
Have a Dream” (speech at March on Washington, 1963) Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano . . . An African Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Black Girl Lost After first reference, you may refer to texts in
abbreviated form, e. g. Caged, Lost,
Douglass, etc. You are welcome to refer briefly to texts from beyond
this course, but keep refocusing on our main texts. Details: ESSAY TOPIC 1: What is the relationship of “African American Literature and Culture” to “American Literature and Culture?” · This topic may overlap with Essay Topic 2. · You may refer back to the ID on Yezierska and Equiano. · In our main texts, where do you see the two cultures integrating and separating? · Identify some causes of this relationship in history and in the texts. · What are the upsides and downsides of the relationship?
ESSAY TOPIC 2: Compare and contrast The Dream in
African American Literature and the American Dream. This topic may overlap with Essay Topic 1. You may refer back to the ID on Yezierska and Equiano. Refer to objective 3, 3a Objective 3 To compare and contrast the dominant “American Dream” narrative—which involves voluntary participation, forgetting the past, and individuals or nuclear families—with alternative narratives of American minorities, which involve involuntary participation, connecting to the past, and traditional, extended, or alternative families. 3a.
African American alternative narrative: “The Dream” ("The Dream" resembles but is not identical to "The American Dream." Whereas the American Dream emphasizes immediate individual success, "the Dream" factors in setbacks, the need to rise again, and a quest for group dignity.) ESSAY TOPIC 3: Compare and contrast two or more texts in African American literature to develop a theme of your choice. · The theme or point of this comparison-contrast is your choice, but the exercise should definitely have a theme or a related series of topics or themes. · Don’t simply compare and contrast in a random, open-ended way. · Focus on a special issue or problem or theme that appears in the text(s). Use the comparison-contrast method to develop ideas and examples relevant to the theme. · You’re required to refer to three texts, but given the comparison-contrast format, you’re welcome to concentrate on two while mentioning a third more briefly without necessarily involving it in a full comparison-contrast treatment. · Try to begin and end on your larger point, drawing the comparison-contrast to some conclusions. What have you learned about the texts and your topic from the comparison contrast exercise?
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