Midterm exam

Date: 19 March

Relative weight: 30-40% of final grade

Format: In-class or email; open-book and open-notebook.

Midterm organization: 2 essay questions / answers + research report proposal

·        Topic 1: longer, comprehensive essay on minority identity and the African American Dream

·        Topic 2: shorter, more focused essay on student’s choice of topic

·        Research Report Proposal: This is a paragraph indicating your likely choice of a topic for the research report on your final exam.

(Details on all 3 parts follow below)

More on format: You may take your midterm either in-class or by email

In-class students write their midterms in blue or black ink in a bluebook or on paper of choice. Email students should work things out as they can on the exam itself or in separate files or attachments. Email students 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 2003. If in doubt, save your word processing file in "Rich Text Format" or a “text only” format.)

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 must finish the exam by 12:50pm Email students must email the exam by 2pm. 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.)

Special requirements:

Please provide titles for both of your essays. (Titles help a lot with setting up the model assignments.)

All students are required to make at least one reference to previous midterms in at least one of your essay answers. You are welcome to make more than one, but don't let the references take over your exam.

Topic 1: longer, comprehensive essay on minority identity and the African American Dream.

Assignment: Write a complete, unified essay of one hour to an hour and a half answering the following questions in whatever order expresses your understanding best:

·       How does this course define minority literature and culture in terms of its differences from the dominant culture?

·       How does African-American literature and culture exemplify minority status, as distinct from the immigrant culture?

·       How does “the Dream” of African American culture resemble and differ from “the American Dream” of the dominant culture?

Refer to the following terms and objectives:

Essential terms:  

·        immigrant narrative

·        American Dream

·        minority experience

·        the Dream

Essential objectives:  

·        Objective 1 (minority concept) 

·        Objective 3 (American Dream and alternative narratives, esp. "the Dream")

Refer to at least 2 of the following 4 texts:

• Declaration of Independence

• Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech

• Selection from Bread Givers
  (These first 3 texts are available either in handouts or on course webpage.)

• Slave Narrative of Olaudah Equiano (in Classic Slave Narratives)

Refer to either Douglass's or Jacobs's slave narratives (or both) (in Classic Slave Narratives).

Refer to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Refer to Black Girl Lost.

Welcome to refer briefly to poetry presentations or to texts beyond the course's readings.

Expected outcomes: Demonstrate comprehension of terms and objectives in the language and narratives of our readings. Express purpose of course and subject. Unify answer in essay format.

Time-frame: 1 hour to 1 hour & 30 minutes

Length? Depends on paragraph length, but most students would write at least 4-6 substantial paragraphs in answering this question. 

Topic 2: shorter, more focused essay on student’s choice of topic

Assignment: Write a personal essay responding to an aspect of our course's readings and content that you wish to develop in more detail.

Choosing a topic: Insofar as you reflect and think on our course and its meaning for American literature and culture, what issues do you find yourself returning to?

Review or connect to objectives. Which objectives or parts of objectives would you emphasize? Or what would you add? Which subjects, aspects, or angles matter most to you, and why?

Some overlap with Topic 1 is permissible, but feel free to develop something altogether different--only make your subject and its discussion matter to a reader from this class (which will be me for starters, but also future students).

Development of topic:

• Regarding your topic, what keeps coming up in our readings? How do our readings introduce and develop your topic?
   

• If you were teaching some of this material, what would you emphasize or change and why? (Welcome to apply to different age or grade levels.)
   

• Feel free to frame your essay in a learning or questioning mode. For instance, What did you know or think before taking this course? What had you read or heard beforehand? (These earlier thoughts and texts may be right or wrong.)
   

• What questions has the course raised, and how are you beginning to answer those questions? 
   

• Connect your topic to one or two course objectives.

Textual references:

• Refer to at least 3 texts from our course readings (paperbacks, handouts, poems).
   

• Welcome to refer briefly to texts beyond our readings.

Expected outcomes: Demonstrate knowledge of course as well as creativity and critical thinking in reacting to shared materials. Appeal to the shared interests of our class at the same time that you potentially enlarge our interests. Unify answer in essay format.

Time-frame: at least 1 hour to 1 hour and a half

Length? Depends on paragraph length, but most students would write at least 3-5 substantial paragraphs in answering this question. 

How to prepare for essay questions / answers:

• Do as much note-taking, outlining, and prewriting as you find helpful.
   

• Reserve the actual writing of your essays for the exam period.

Note on Research Report Proposal
As part of your midterm exam, you will write and submit a proposal for the Research Report that will be part of your final exam.

You may write this proposal ahead of time and simply turn it in with the midterm, or you may write it during the midterm period.

Assignment: Write 3-5 sentences identifying your probable topic for a research report, explaining why you chose it, and speculating on what you hope to learn and how. Explain the sources of your interest. Give some indication of what you already know and what you wish to find out.

Range of subjects: You have considerable freedom to choose, but a reader of your proposal should immediately recognize its relevance to a course on minority literature and identity. You may extend research you have done previously for other courses or personal interests, but be up-front about what you learned before and what you wish to learn for this assignment.

Requirements and possibilities for topics:

• Except under special circumstances approved by the instructor, your topic must have something to do with minority literature as this course defines it—therefore, some connection to either African American, Native American, or Mexican American, or some combination of these groups. You may also incorporate aspects of gender or class as minority categories.
   

• Your topic should involve some aspect of literature or culture associated with one or more of these groups—for instance, a movement in literature, an important author or group of authors, a genre or style of writing associated with the minority group.
   

• Welcome to focus on a course objective and apply or develop it in an extended or different direction from the class.
   

• Ask yourself what you want to know and why you want to know about it--anything to do with our subject. Or think of what you already know (or think you know) and what kinds of questions you’d like to answer.
   

• As far as texts, your readings will not be primary texts (like novels, plays, autobiographies, etc.) but rather secondary texts like encyclopedia articles, research guides, overviews of subjects, so that you can gather information, not form opinions (though some themes or generalizations are necessary).
   

• Other topics or areas may be developed as the semester progresses. The main thing is for you to choose a topic you care about and want to learn about and share.
   

• Review previous semesters’ research reports for LITR 4332 and 4333.

Response to Research Proposal

• Student does not receive an announced letter grade for the proposal, only a “yes” or instructions for receiving a yes. Students will not lose credit for problems in reaching a topic as long as they are working to resolve these problems.

• The only way you can start getting into trouble over the proposal is if you simply don’t offer much to work with, especially after prompts from instructor. An example of a bad proposal is a single sentence that starts, “I’m thinking about . . . ” and ends with “ . . . doing something about race and gender.” Then for the question, “What do you think?” In these cases, a bad grade isn’t recorded, but notes regarding the paper proposal may appear on the Final Grade Report.