LITR 4332: American Minority Literature
 final exam 2008

Deadline: 9 December                                     Relative weight: 50% of final grade

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

Final exam options--all involve 2 essays or 1 essay + 1 report 

  • Two Essay Default--if you're confused about what's required, just do these two essays (details below).

    • essay on American Indian literature (from 2 choices)
       

    • essay on Mexican American literature (from 2 choices
       

  • Two Essay Option

    • Essay on American Indian and Mexican American narratives
       

    • Essay on trans-minority possibilities

 

  • Essay / Research Report Option (requires prior approval)

    • Essay: American Indian and Mexican American narratives
       

    • Research Report on minority topic of choice (proposal required)

(Details on all options follow below)

Special requirements:

  • Provide titles for your essays. (Titles help set up Model Assignments.)
     

  • Not required but impressive: refer to student presentations or discussions--insights and/or quotations. (To review postings, click on syllabus.)

Schedule:

  • No attendance requirements on 2 or 9 December. Those wishing to take the exam in-class may do so on either day.
     

  • You may submit your final exam any time after our last regular class meeting on Tuesday, 25 November.
     

  • Deadline for submitting final exam is 11pm, Tuesday, 9 December (unless you make special arrangements with instructor)
     

  • Instructor will hold office hours from 7-11 on both 2 and 9 December. Troubleshoot final, review midterm.

Format: Take your midterm in-class or online

Open-book, open-notebook. 

  • Use any relevant course materials plus brief references to outside sources as helpful

  • Discuss assignment and receive suggestions or feedback from classmates, UHCL Writing Center, or mentors, but no direct writing contributions or hands-on editing from another person.

  • Don't copy or borrow from outside sources without attribution--honor code violation! (Just tell where you got the idea or words--your research will impress!)

Options for taking exam:

  • come to classroom during exam period and write answers in dark ink in bluebook or on notebook paper, or use a laptop

  • spend a roughly equivalent time at a terminal writing an electronic document and sending it to the instructor at whitec@uhcl.edu via email.

  • No attendance expectations on 2 or 9 December.

Length: Most previous essay answers to similar questions run from 5-8 paragraphs, but sometimes a lot more or a little less depending on paragraph length.

Timing: The maximum time limit is 3 hours for in-class exams and 4 hours for online exams.

  • You should write for at least two hours, spending at least one hour on each essay.

  • In-class exams and online exams are read separately, minimizing the time difference.

Email students may write and submit the exam anytime between the end of class on Tuesday, 25 November, and 11pm Tuesday, 9 December. (Or pre-arrange another submission time)

Keep a log of when you stop and start. Dividing up the exam process with pauses and breaks is OK, but otherwise try not to take any advantage unavailable to in-class students. Consult with instructor by phone or email.

Sending your midterm by email: Try both of the following

  • Attach word processing file to email message. (My computer uses Microsoft Word 2007. The only program it can't translate is Microsoft Works.  Try saving your file in "Rich Text Format" or a “text only” format.)
  • Paste contents of your file directly into an email to whitec@uhcl.edu.

Response to email: Instructor will acknowledge receipt of email exam within a few hours--if no response, check address. Grades and notes are returned by email in about a week.

In-class protocol: Since you already have a copy of the midterm, come to the classroom at 7pm and begin writing whether instructor is there or not.

  • Consult with instructor--if not in classroom, phone office at 281 283 3380 or come to Bayou 2529-8.

  • No need to ask permission for short breaks.

  • Write in blue or black ink in a bluebook or notebook paper on fronts and backs of pages.  No need to erase—just draw a line through anything you don’t want read.

  • When finished, turn in exam at instructor’s table or bring it to instructor's office.

  • If preferred, you may write on a laptop.

How to prepare for essay questions / answers:

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

  • Discuss questions and answers with classmates. It's not cheating to help each other prepare.
     

  • Work with terms and ideas from Course Objectives.
     

  • Review questions, preparation, and "practice drafts" with UHCL Writing Center in advance
     

  • For students using word-processors, revise and improve before submitting.

Grading standards:

Quality of writing: significant themes are consistently presented, organized, and developed throughout essay; unity and transitions between parts of essay; surface quality (absence of chronic errors); inclusion of titles.

Surface quality: My attitude in reading a timed writing exercise like this is not to watch like a hawk for minor errors but rather to see how far you go in developing our shared ideas. Occasional careless errors don’t count against you, but you may lose credit for chronic problems such as run-on sentences or fragments, or a repeated inability to use apostrophes or divide paragraphs.

Evidence of learning: All exams must use central terms and themes from objectives in developing examples from texts. Knowledge from beyond the course and on-the-spot inventiveness are impressive, but first and foremost demonstrate learning by comprehending and explaining the course’s essential materials.

Extension of learning: The best exams go further than comprehending course terms, objectives, and texts. The student's voice also refreshes, extends, or varies objectives, themes, and terms with examples from class, from readings, and from reading and experience beyond our class. Make our course meet your world.

Final exam options:

Two Essay Default (If you're confused about what's required, just do these two essays)

Write 2 essays: 1 on American Indian literature, 1 on Mexican American literature

  • essay on American Indian literature (from 2 choices)
     

  • essay on Mexican American literature (from 2 choices
     

Essay on American Indian literature (from 2 choices)

A. (default option). Referring to American Indian Stories and Love Medicine, discuss how Native Americans qualify as a minority culture (objective 1) and how their cultural narrative of “Loss and Survival” responds to this situation. (Objective 5b)

B. (creative option). Apply another course objective to American Indian Stories and Love Medicine. Explain the significance of your chosen objective. Describe how it appears in the texts and in American Indian culture generally. Conclude with what you have learned through this essay about the objective and American Indian literature and culture.


Essay on Mexican American literature (from 2 choices)

A. (default option). Describe “Latinos / Hispanics” as an ethnic group and locate Mexican Americans within it as an “ambivalent minority.” Why may this description be appropriate, given the history of Mexican America and the Southwest United States? How successfully does “ambivalence” characterize Mexican and Mexican American experience in our readings? Apply to “The Miraculous Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe” and Bless Me, Ultima. (Objective 5c—mostly).

B. (creative option). Apply another course objective besides 5c to the subjects of Mexican Americans and the texts of “The Miraculous Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe” and Bless Me, Ultima. Explain the significance of your chosen objective and use it as a means of exploring the unique potentials of Mexican American identity. Describe the appearance of your objective in the texts and in Mexican American culture generally. Conclude with what you have learned through this essay about the objective and about Mexican American literature and culture.

 

Two Essay Option--write 2 essays: 1 on American Indian and Mexican American literature, 1 on trans-minority possibilities

  • Essay on American Indian and Mexican American narratives
     

  • Essay on trans-minority possibilities

Essay on American Indian and Mexican American narratives

Referring to appropriate objectives and texts, write a complete essay explaining how Native America and Mexican America may be considered minority ethnic cultures and the special narratives these cultures have developed in response to their conditions.

  • Refer specifically to at least three of the following texts or sets of texts: American Indian Stories; Love Medicine; The Story of the Lady of Guadalupe ; Bless Me, Ultima.
     

  • Explain the course’s working definition for ethnic minorities and relate Native American and Mexican American culture to this definition. (Objective 1)
     

  • Describe the narratives that Mexican American and American Indian literature develop as an alternative to the dominant culture’s American Dream. (Objective 5b & 5c) 
     

  • Feel free to refer to poems from class presentations or to previous student exam answers that shed light on these subjects. (Not required.)

Essay on trans-minority possibilities

Multicultural education occasionally faces critiques that it promotes "victimization" and "separatism" among ethnic or gender groups, when schools might instead be promoting "colorblind empowerment and assimilation to dominant-culture values" through courses like "Western Civilization," "Basic Texts," or "Great Books."

You are welcome to react against such critiques, but take them seriously. Consider how courses like Minority Literature may (or may not) contribute to empowerment and unity as opposed to victimization and separatism. Refer to at least three course texts across the semester. Interpret in a context of American history and culture.

 

Consider the following objectives: (Don't do them all, but refer to 1 or 2 or more)

Objective 1: Minority Definitions . . .

Objective 3: minority dilemma--assimilate or resist? + 3a. To contrast the dominant-culture ideology of racial separation from American practice, which frequently involves hybridity (mixing) and change.

Objective 4b. To question sacred modern concepts like "individuality" and "rights" and politically correct ideas like minorities as "victims"; to explore emerging postmodern identities, e. g. “biracial,” “global,” and “post-national.”

Objective 6: Minorities and Language: To study minority writers' and speakers' experiences with literacy & influence on literature and language.

6a. To regard literacy as the primary code of modern existence and a key or path to empowerment. (See obj. 3 on assimilation / resistance)

6b. To emphasize how all speakers and writers use literary devices such as narrative and figures of speech.

6c. To discover literature's power to express the minority voice and vicariously share minority experience.

6d. To assess minorities' status in the "canon" or curriculum of what is read and taught in schools

Other possibilities:

The Trickster (present in all cultures)

Traditional and Modern cultures and identities

 

 

Essay / Research Report Option--write 1 essay on American Indian and Mexican American literature, and a Research Report on an approved topic

  • Essay: American Indian and Mexican American narratives

  • Research Report on minority topic of choice (proposal required)

Essay on American Indian and Mexican American narratives

Referring to appropriate objectives and texts, write a complete essay explaining how Native America and Mexican America may be considered minority ethnic cultures and the special narratives these cultures have developed in response to their conditions.

  • Refer specifically to at least three of the following texts or sets of texts: American Indian Stories; Love Medicine; The Story of the Lady of Guadalupe ; Bless Me, Ultima.
     

  • Explain the course’s working definition for ethnic minorities and relate Native American and Mexican American culture to this definition. (Objective 1)
     

  • Describe the narratives that Mexican American and American Indian literature develop as an alternative to the dominant culture’s American Dream. (Objective 5b & 5c) 
     

  • Feel free to refer to poems from class presentations or to previous student exam answers that shed light on these subjects. (Not required.)

 

Research Report (requires prior approval of proposal)

Process: You will write your research report in the same way as you would write an essay for the exam--either in-class or by email.

Title: Give your report a title

Length: approximately 4-6 paragraphs

Time: 1-2 hours

Works Cited: Include a list of your major research sources. You may prepare your “Works Cited” ahead of time. In-class students may fold in a print-out with their exam.

Assignment description: Write a complete report describing your research on your chosen subject.

  • Student is responsible for having researched at least four sources on the subject before the exam. These sources should be as varied as possible: web sources, personal interviews with teachers or experts, documentaries or encyclopedia articles, anything with trustworthy information on your subject.

  • Organize the information you found and review how you may use it, either in your college career, extended research, teaching, or personal development.

  • The emphasis is on information, not opinion and analysis, though some summary and evaluation is welcome and expected. It's a report foremost.

  • You are encouraged to connect your findings to course objectives or texts.

Default organization: Describe your path of learning as a quest.

  • What subject did you choose and why? What relevance to our course and/or to your life or career?

  • What were your starting points in research? How did your subject or understanding change or develop?

  • What did you learn? What was expected or unexpected? If you continued your research, what would you seek to know next and why?

Evaluation standards for research report: Readability, competence levels, and interest.

  • Readability: Your reader must be able to process what you're reporting. Given the pressures of a timed writing exercise, some rough edges are acceptable.

  • Competence levels: quality of your research and comprehension of your subject

  • Interest: Make your reader *want* to process your report. Make the information meaningful; make it matter to our study of literature and culture.

Research Report Proposals

Research Reports from 2007

Research Reports from 2005