LITR 4332 American Minority Literature Midterm Assignment

4 parts to midterm

1. Short essay (4-6 paragraphs) on 1 of 2 options (or combinations as inspired) :

• 2a. Highlight and analyze a passage from our course readings—your best textual experience  in comprehending course contents (terms, themes, objectives, class discussion) and literary style

• 2b. Favorite term, objective, concept in course + explanation & application to 1-2 readings

2. Long essay: Use course texts, terms, and objectives to describe and analyze our readings in African American as examples of American Minority Literature and culture. Explore challenges and advantages in studying and teaching multicultural literature, art, society, etc. (6-8 paragraphs)

3. Web Review: Review at least 3 items by previous students from Model Assignments for LITR 4332 or Model Assignments for LITR 5731 (4-6 paragraphs)

4. Research proposal (2+ paragraphs) previewing research project & choice of options

(details on all 4 parts: scroll down)

Textual references: Somewhere in your exam, refer at least 5 of the following texts / reading assignments. Some references are required. Outside references welcome-to-impressive, but keep returning to course texts and themes.

You must refer to Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye & at least one slave narrative: Interesting Narrative of the Life of . . . Olaudah Equiano, The African; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave; Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

You must refer to at least one poem: Phyllis Wheatley, "On Being Brought from Africa to America"; Langston Hughes, "Harlem" & "Dream Variations"; Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise"; Countee Cullen, "From the Dark Tower"; "Incident"; "For a Poet"; Terrance Hayes, "The Blue Terrance"; Tracy K. Smith, "Don't You Wonder, Sometimes?"

Other texts available for reference: Crevecoeur, "What is an American?" (1782); The Declaration of Independence; "I have a dream . . . " ; "Obama Has Ties to Slavery Not by His Father but His Mother . . . "; selections from Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers; Zora Neal Hurston, "How it Feels to be Colored Me"

Details for Midterm Parts 1-4

Requirements for references to objectives: you may refer to part or all of any objective, or combinations;
some students refer to objectives via numbers, etc., but most simply integrate terms or headings
from objectives with enough prominence that references are evident.

1. Short essay (4-6 paragraphs) on 1 of 2 options (or combinations as inspired) :

• 2a. Highlight and analyze a passage from our course readings—your best textual experience  in comprehending course contents (terms, themes, objectives, class discussion) and literary style

• 2b. Favorite term, objective, concept in course + explanation & application to 1-2 readings

1a. Highlight a passage from our course readings—your best textual experience before the midterm—explaining why it made an impression on you. Analyze the passage’s language, how it works and connects. Apply to course terms and/or objectives + extend or apply beyond course.

Copy and paste the passage into your exam, or simply refer to it so instructor can find it or know what you’re talking about. (Doesn’t count as essay length)

You may refer to more than 1 passage, but more material may equal shallower analysis. If 2 passages, connect.

References to discussion or lecture welcome; otherwise analyze text on its own terms, in larger context, by connecting to other texts and to course objectives.

Make it matter. Why or how does the passage speak to literary and cultural issues in and beyond our course?

1b. Favorite term, objective, concept in course + why + application to 1-2 readings

What  term or idea appeals to you the most & why? What concepts does it explain? Why does the term or its applications matter? Two textual references may be better than one.

Connect, compare, or contrast with other terms.

How has your understanding evolved?

Make it matter. Why or how does your term, theme, or objective speak to literary and cultural issues in and beyond our course? How might you use this term for further reading or study?

Sample short essays from LITR 4232 American Renaissance spring 2012

2. Long essay: Use course texts, terms, and objectives to describe and analyze African American literature as American Minority Literature and culture. Explore challenges and gains in studying multicultural literature, art, society, etc. (6-8 paragraphs)

Consider: voice & choice, color code & Black Aesthetic, assimilation and resistance, the Dream and the American Dream.

The following prompts are NOT A CHECKLIST but only suggestions for possible approaches and materials.

• Describe your learning experience with African American and minority literature in our course (and beyond). What was your previous experience or reading in this subject, and how has this course extended or changed your previous knowledge or understanding?

• How does African American experience in these texts represent the minority concept?

• How do minority stories vary the American Dream narrative of the USA's dominant culture? (objectives 1 & 3)

• How does African American literature supplement, augment, or challenge the traditional teaching of American literature?

• Refer to 3 or more texts and relate their situations, themes, issues, narratives, and outcomes.

• Demonstrate knowledge of terms: acknowledge necessary terms or concepts, establish working definitions, and apply to textual examples.

Your essay should discuss as many literary and cultural issues as you can unify, but your tone doesn't have to be definitive or conclusive, especially since you will continue some of this essay's themes in your final exam. Therefore feel free to wonder and explore, to raise questions to which you want answers, or to identify what you're learning and why it matters and what's next.

Our subject is too far-reaching and evolving for an essay to cover every possible aspect of text, lecture, & discussion, so the object of this essay is not complete coverage. Try, however, to cover as much objective-related material as possible in as much depth and with as much unity as possible. Prioritize your learning experience, then fit as many texts and objectives under that experience as possible.

sample long essays from LITR 4332 2007

sample long essays from LITR 4332 2005

3. Web Review: Review at least 3 items by previous students from Model Assignments for this or related courses (4-6 paragraphs)

Assignment: Review at least 3 submissions on the  Model Assignments page for this course or for LITR 5731 Seminar in American Minority Literature and write 5-7 paragraphs (total) on what you found and learned.

Requirements & guidelines:

At least one Model Assignment must be a midterm from LITR 4232's previous semesters. You may limit to midterms, but research projects, research proposals, final exams, and presentations may help your proposal.

“Review”: describe what interested you, where, why, what you learned. You may criticize what you found, but not required.

To identify passages, copy and paste brief selections into your web review or refer to them using locations, paraphrases, summaries, and brief quotes. (Both options in models.) Either way, highlight and discuss language used in the passages as part of your commentary. Critique what you learn.

What did you learn from reviewing model assignments that you didn't learn from in-class instruction?

Models of web reviews from LITR 4232 2010

Models of web reviews from LITR 5731 American Immigrant Literature

sample web reviews from LITR 4232 American Renaissance 2012

sample web reviews from LITR 5731 Seminar in American Minority Literature 2012: A. Ambrosius, Lisa Hacker, Ryan Smith

Model Assignments for LITR 4332 American Minority Literature

Model Assignments for LITR 5731 Seminar in Multicultural Literature: American Minority

4. Research proposal (2+ paragraphs) previewing research project & choice of options

For your research project, choose one of three options: research essay, research journal, or 2 research posts—see Research Options Index.

Write at least two paragraphs

• describing your choice of research options and subjects,

• explaining your interest in the subject,

• outlining possible texts and research, and

• asking at least one question of the instructor

You may change your option or topic by notifying the instructor before the last minute.

For now this proposal is to make you start thinking about your topic so you can begin research early.

You have plenty of choices—your priority should be to write on something you want to learn about that connects to our course.

Parameters:

• Your topic should be recognizable as having something to do with our course's subject of American Minority Literature, though you can compare and contrast this subject with other literary or historical traditions.

• You are not automatically limited to authors, texts, or cultures in the syllabus.

• Since the proposal comes early, many students propose for African American literature, but welcome to look ahead to American Indian or Mexican American literature or culture.

• If your topic changes drastically, let me know so I won’t be surprised and think the wrong things when I see it.

Most common problems in midterms & research plans:

• Students don’t write enough—they write what they have to, then stop and don't think about it anymore, instead of pushing their ideas another step or returning for second thoughts.

• Students ignore the class and blah-blah like they would have whether they took the class or not, recycling old ideas from other classes or from family or hallway conversations (which you can use as long as you connect to this class with them). Show what you've learned by connecting your thoughts to course terms and objectives.

• Students fear I'll bust them on weird piddly little stuff like documentation or double-spacing instead of working on their content, organization, and surface style.

• Students forget or ignore objectives and course terms

• Students forget or fail to proofread and edit before submission. (If you haven't read your own writing, how can you expect others to read it?)

I try not to think about such issues because doing these things right is standard professional conduct for those of us committed to working with language, writing, and readers.

Documentation: no need for “Works Cited” or bibliography unless your essay goes beyond our shared readings, or you want to list some sources in your research plan.

• Page numbers in parentheses are welcome but not essential unless very odd or surprising.

• If documentation problems arise, I’ll ask about them (won’t declare war).

• If this all sounds casual, the midterm remains an exam, not a paper for presentation beyond our course

Audience: a member of our class, someone starting the next semester of this class, or maybe even your family or other teachers, so they can know what you’re learning. Of course one audience has to be the course instructor, but my response may address how much you wrote for the seminar as opposed to talking about whatever you would have said before the class started.

general guidelines for exam grades

Quality of writing as evidence of learning is a criterion for distinguishing excellent work from competent work in Literature. Most written assignments aren’t judged on whether they’re right or wrong, but how well they develop their ideas

Surface quality & style: Competence with surface issues like spelling, punctuation, and grammar is taken for granted. An occasional careless error won't kill your grade, given time pressures, but repeated or chronic errors are remarked and factored as part of your grade. If you have trouble with spelling, word endings, punctuation, etc., get help from a mentor or tutor (as long as they explain their suggestions).

Instructor's Reaction & continuing dialogue:

Within a few hours of receiving your email midterm, instructor will acknowledge receipt and include a brief reply regarding your research proposal.

 A week or two after submission, you'll receive an email from instructor including your grade report with a midterm grade filled in and notes on your essays and web review.

My response to your essay, plan, and review will be less on right or wrong ideas than how to develop your ideas with better organization and use of course materials. (What you don't want me to write is, "You could have written this essay without taking the course.")

Reply to instructor about your midterm & note?

Welcome to reply to instructor's emails at any time. Besides note-taking, the surest sign of a student's probable success is communication with instructor (as opposed to wishing he and the course would just go away).

 Professors can be intimidating, unpredictable, eccentric or annoyingly like your parents (or grandparents!), but I cooperate if you give me chances.