(Final version, posted 3:35pm, 2 May 2006.)

LITR 4333 2006 American Immigrant Literature: Final Exam

Date: Tuesday, 2 May 2006

Format: In-class or email; open-book and open-notebook; two complete essays

Relative weight: 50% of final grade

Time:

·        The exam should take at least two hours and a half to complete, but you may use the entire class period or equivalent (2 hours and 50 minutes).

·        In-class students will be given the exam at 4pm and must turn in answers by 6:50pm.

·        All students will be emailed the exam at approximately 3:45pm, at which time the final version of the exam will also be posted on the course webpage. Email students must submit the exam by 8pm. The 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.)

·        As with the midterm, you may plan, outline, and practice your answers as much as you like, but please limit the writing of your exam to the time indicated.

Part 1: Research Report with bibliography or works cited (1-1.5 hours)

Part 2: Essay question regarding immigrant literature and dominant culture (national migration) (1-1.5 hours)

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Part 1: Research Report with bibliography or works cited

Format requirements

Title: Give your report a title

Length: approximately 4-6 paragraphs

Time: 1-1.5 hours

Works Cited: Include a list of your major research sources (at least four)

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.

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

·        The emphasis is on information, not opinion and analysis, though some summary and evaluation are 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 did you hope to learn?

·        What were your starting points in research? How did your subject or understanding change or develop? What did you learn from what sources were available?

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

Or here’s another description of the same organization:

Unify the material in terms of a quest: 

·        what you wanted to learn (and why)

·        what you found out or learned (and how)

·        where this knowledge has taken you

·        what would you like to learn or find out next, based on what you have learned so far?

Evaluation standards: 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; comprehension of your subject and expression of your findings

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

Sources for research report:

You must refer to at least four outside sources. As one of your sources, you are encouraged to consider interviewing either representatives of your immigrant group or experts who may know something about this group.

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

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Part 2: Essay question regarding immigrant literature and dominant culture

General assignment

Reading Plymouth Plantation in relation to the Exodus story, Bread Givers, and Hunting Mr. Heartbreak, review what you have learned about the dominant culture of the USA, especially in comparison and contrast to other immigrant narratives.

·        How does the dominant culture’s story differ from that of other immigrants?

·        What are the characteristics of the dominant culture that other immigrants more or less assimilate to?

·        How does the dominant culture gain and keep power while deflecting attention from itself?

·        How do these texts model, reflect, or perceive the dominant culture?

·        How does Hunting Mr. Heartbreak chart new developments in immigration or change in American and world culture? (Objective 6 regarding “vertical immigration”)

Objectives

Refer primarily to Objective 4 but also more briefly to Objectives 1-3.

Texts

·        Just as no single text tells all of the immigrant narrative, so no single text can tell the whole story of the dominant culture. Of Plymouth Plantation is only a starting point on a large and diffuse subject. Exodus prepares a model. Bread Givers shows some dominant-culture tendencies but mostly looks in from the outside. Refer to all three texts. It’s best to make connections between the texts.

·        Welcome also to refer briefly to other texts that shed light on the subject.

·        Welcome also to refer briefly to personal experiences or make personal observations about your position inside or outside that dominant culture, its attractions or repulsions, etc., but keep refocusing on what we may learn about American cultural identity from the texts.

Organization

As with the research report, consider organizing on a “learning quest” approach.

·        Probably the simplest starting point is the question, “If immigrants assimilate to American culture, what kind of culture do they assimilate to?”

·        What knowledge of the dominant culture did you start with? What impressions?

·        What points of learning do the texts provide?

·        What do you arrive at? What kind of future relationship between immigrants, minorities, and the dominant culture is possible? Is the old dominant culture still there? (Refer to Raban, obj. 6 regarding “vertical immigration”)

·        Inevitably you may speculate and take some chances, but keep the texts and objective 4 in sight.