|
2019 Midterm1
(assignment) |
LITR 4340
American Immigrant Literature Model Assignments |
|
February 26, 2019
American Dreams
Though the concept of doing web highlights seemed at
first rather simple concept, it soon proved troubling once I began delving in.
Reading essays by fellow classmates soon proved to be a miasma of differing
opinions that didn’t seem to have any cohesive theme other than comparing and
contrasting the immigrant and minority narratives. As a Literature major, I was
yearning for more detailed explanations for an assignment that I couldn’t seem
to wrap my head about. Critique three previous works from other students? It
didn’t seem to make any sense. But as I read, I began noticing trends I had
missed in my previous skimming of essays of years past. Glimpses of answers
formed for me, and they revolved around the theme of what is expected towards
this assignment.
In Annie Tran’s 2018 midterm 1 assignment article,
The Dream and Nightmare of America,
the structure of her essay really helped me understand what my expectations were
for the essay part of this assignment. Weaving together personal experience with
examples from the various text read thus far, Tran’s article helped the
immigrant narrative make more sense to me when placed in the context of the main
course objectives, such as escaping the old world and assimilation to the new
one. Utilizing well-placed citations from multiple texts, Tran embroiders the
well-established observations of minority narrative into her paper, touching on
the plights of African Americans and American Indians as separate and different
from the immigrant narrative, having been forced into the position rather than
by choice. This is the main and most profound difference that Tran points out in
her essay.
In looking at Ruth Brown’s 2016 final research report,
Narratives: Piecing the Puzzle Together, however, I was equally as
impressed with her style and form as I was the differences in the lens in which
she wrote. Rather than writing from the perspective of an immigrant, as Annie
Tran did, Ruth’s position was from the perspective of the dominant culture. The
information provided was easy to read, clear and concise, with an ease of
reading that spoke to a less biased and more open-minded approach to the
immigrant and minority experience. Highlighting cleanliness as the common trait
of the dominant American culture, Brown drew not only on previous research
papers which focused primarily on the institutionalization of these dominant
culture traits, but on the historical documentations of the events themselves,
chronicled in the various tales of the Pilgrim settlement of the country in the
1600’s. As a history buff, I was
glad to see an essay that included all aspects of immigration.
In contrast, Clark Omo’s 2018
web highlights article
“Resistance
and Assimilation: The Trials of the American Immigrant”
was quite intimidating. Well-written and scholarly, but it read more like a
research paper than a critique of articles and seemed to go above and beyond the
parameters of the assignment. Compared to Greg Bellomy’s web highlights from
that same year, there seemed to be a great discrepancy in what was communicated
versus what each person’s interpretation of the requirements were. I must add
that I know Clark personally and admire him, not only as a person but as a
writer, but reading this report actually hindered my ability to fully grasp the
intentions for quite a long time. His analysis of the three assignments was deep
and insightful, however, and I will be modeling my research paper after his
style.
After reading all of the various papers, looking at
style, form, and interpretations of the assignments, I can see that people’s
views differ as much as snowflakes. Each person’s assignment that I read, and I
read many more than three, not only gave me a better understanding of what
criteria are expected when writing the research paper, but also helped me see
the different experiences of my classmates through the lens of the
immigrant/minority/dominant culture narratives. They have given me much to think
about as I begin my initial essay.
