(This webpage is the assignment for our course's second midterm, to be updated and refined up to 24 October, when paper copies will be distributed.)

Format: Email. Open-book, open-notebook. No class meeting on 31 October but classroom available for students; instructor keeps office hours 7-10.

Email exams due to whitec@uhcl.edu by midnight Tuesday, 1 November. "Submission window" is 25 October-1 November.

Three parts to Midterm2:

Part 1. Essay describing "New World Immigrants" as both immigrant and minority narratives and identities. (At least 7 paragraphs.)

Part 2. Web Highlights reviewing at least three Model Assignments from previous semesters (incl. at least one previous midterm2 essay) (4-5 paragraphs)

Part 3. Start Research Report: At least 3-4 substantial paragraphs with two sources toward your Research Report (to be completed on Final Exam)

Special requirement: Essays, Web Highlights, and Research Reports must have titles.

Advice: Start working on #2 Web Highlights first in order to acquaint yourself with standards and materials.

Special notes: Sections’ contents may overlap or repeat materials, but be efficient; cross-reference to economize.

Part 1. Essay describing "New World Immigrants" as combination of immigrant and minority narratives and cultures. (7+ paragraphs)

Models of successful Midterm2 Essay submissions from 2013

As background to establish this essay's key terms (immigrant and minority), review definitions and examples of immigrant and minority from your Midterm1 essay, another student's Midterm1 essay from 2016 or 2013, or by references to our Midterm1 readings, presentations, and discussions. What differences and similarities stand out between immigrant and minority cultural narratives? (Welcome to improve and extend what you wrote before.)

For the largest part of your essay's body, describe how both Immigrant and Minority identities appear in our texts by "New World Immigrants" to the USA—Hispanic or Afro-Caribbean immigrants from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Review historical origins and find examples of both immigrant and minority identity in our texts since Midterm1. Immigrants from the Western Hemisphere or "New World" have different historical relationships to the United States than immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere or "Old World" of Europe and Asia. How do these histories differ, and how do New World Immigrants stories show these different histories or relations?

Possible prompts: (not a checklist—the best essays work in these terms, issues, and themes)

How does the USA's history of racial discrimination or exclusion affect New World Immigrants?

What  variations in the mix of immigrant and minority narratives appear among Mexican Americans, other Hispanic Americans (or Latin@s), and Afro-Caribbeans?

Pay attention to historical origins, assimilation or resistance, and possible futures—e.g., how may the group shape or be shaped by USA culture?

Refer to relevant parts of Objective 1, especially . . .

The New World immigrant (Hispanic/Latin@ and Afro-Caribbean) constitutes a large wave of contemporary immigration and combines immigrant and minority narratives: voluntary immigration from the Caribbean / West Indies or MesoAmerica but also often experience of exploitation by USA in countries or origin, or through identification with minorities (Indians and Blacks) via color code.

Refer also to relevant parts of Objective 3, especially . . .

3e. (after Midterm1) “New World Immigrants,” including Mexican Americans, other Latinos, and Afro-Caribbeans, may create an identity somewhere between or combining immigrant and minority patterns. . . . (See LITR 4340 Homepage for complete objective)

Essential terms (some from midterm1) to explain and apply in midterm2: immigrant; minority, assimilation, New World immigrants, Hispanic / Latino, mestizo, tradition / modernity; Mexican Americans as immigrant, minority, or both; Afro-Caribbean identity as immigrant and minority

Special requirements or advice for Midterm2 Essay:

Personal references: Not required, but you may refer to your own backgrounds, previous knowledge, and interpretations of the materials. Relate all such materials to the assignment or objectives.

Textual requirements for essay: Refer to 6+ texts from course readings—either daily assigned readings, poems presented, or texts on course webpage.

• Of the 6 texts, at least five should be stories from Imagining America or Immigrant Voices, handouts, PDFs, or webpage texts since Midterm1. One or two texts may be from before Midterm1 (as examples of immigrant and minority), but you can refer to such texts briefly by summarizing your Midterm1 essay or what you've learned since..
   
• Welcome to refer to quotes or ideas from earlier midterms on the Model Assignments, but the Web Review part of our midterm makes this optiona

New World Immigrants: Mexican-American, Hispanic, and Afro-Caribbean narratives combining immigrant and minority identities (select 2)

Fiction and nonfiction: Gary Soto, “Like Mexicans” [handout/PDF]; Nash Candelaria, "El Patron" (IA 221-228); Sandra Cisneros, "Barbie-Q" (IA 252-253); Reyna Grande, from The Distance Between Us (IV2 83-104); Junot Diaz, "How to Date a Browngirl . . . “ (IA 276-279); Oscar Hijuelos, “Visitors, 1965” (IA 310-325) Judith Ortiz Cofer, "Silent Dancing" [handout/PDF]; Edwidge Danticat, “Children of the Sea” (IA 98-112); Paule Marshall, “The Making of a Writer: From the Poets in the Kitchen” [handout/PDF]; Paule Marshall, “To Da-Duh, in Memoriam” (IA 368-377)

Poetry: Pat Mora, “Immigrants"; Gary Soto, "Mexicans Begin Jogging"; Martin Espada, “Coca-Cola and Coco Frio”; Claude McKay, "America" & "The White City"

Historical / cultural websites used in class (optional but impressive): Personal Memoirs of John N. Seguin; The US-Mexican War, 1846-48;  Some History of Mexican Immigration: "100 Years in the Back Door, Out the Front"; Gloria Anzaldua; San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site; ; "Edwidge Danticat: By the Book"

Part 2.  Web Highlights: Review at least 3 student submissions from course website's Model Assignments relevant to Midterm2 (4-6 paragraphs)

Models of successful Web Highlights from 2016 Midterm1

Requirements & guidelines: Web Highlights essay must have a title.

Write this part as an essay, not just a list of 3 items. Unify your learning experience. Compare and contrast the three assignments you review.

What did you learn from reviewing model assignments that you didn't learn from in-class instruction (or extended or confirmed it in some way)?

  Review at least one midterm2 essay from 2013 Midterm2 essay samples.

  Review at least one research-report-in-progress from 2013 Midterm2 Research Report Starts.

  Your third item may be a Midterm1 2016 essay, another 2013 Midterm2 essay, another 2013 Midterm2 Research Report Start, or any other essay or assignment on the American Immigrant Literature Model Assignments.

“Review”: describe what interested you, where, why you chose it, 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 names, 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.

For Model Assignments of the Web Highlights assignment, see LITR 4340 2016 midterm1 Web Highlight samples, LITR 4326 2016 midterm Web Highlight samples or LITR 4328 2015 midterm Web Highlight samples.

Part 3.  Start Research Report: At least 3-4 substantial paragraphs with two sources toward your Research Report (to be completed on Final Exam)

Models:of successful submissions from 2013

Assignment: Introduce your topic, describe your research from at least two sources, and what you've learned so far as it relates to American Immigrant Literature or immigrant culture, with possible previews of materials to be added or researched for Final Research Report on Final Exam (8-10 paragraphs).

Introduction: Why are you interested in your topic, and what do you wish to learn? What relevance does it have to our course and / or your career? What question are you trying to answer?

Body paragraphs: How did you start your research, and what did you find?

Content: emphasis is on information, not opinion and analysis, though some summary and evaluation is welcome and expected. It's a report foremost. (In other words, you're not "interpreting" a text but rather reporting facts and information about your selected topic.)

Default organization (for the entire report): You're writing on the spot and finals are read quickly. The path of least resistance is to describe and unify your report as a "quest" or "journey of learning."

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

• MLA style is preferred, but other standard forms are acceptable. Don't spend too much time fussing over forms when you should be feeling impassioned over your subject.

• Here's my test for a listing: Would I be able to track it down using the information provided?

• You may use previous research reports for 1 or 2 of your sources, or use those reports themselves as sources. (LITR 4333 Model Assignments) (LITR 5731im Model Assignments)

Advice for Midterm2, based on instructor's response to Midterm1

Use the question / assignment as a guide to organizing and providing essential contents.

Use course-website resources, esp. term-links—don't just rely on memory or previous knowledge

Review questions / assignments after drafting to see what you've left out.

Develop textual examples for Part 1 Essay. Don't just mention examples, but analyze them and return to text for more information.

Grading criteria:

Surface competence / readability: An occasional careless error won't kill your grade, given time pressures, but repeated or chronic errors are remarked and factored. If you have trouble with spelling, word endings, punctuation, etc., get help from a mentor or tutor (ask them to explain help).

Content: Use, explain, and apply course terms as defined primarily by course term-links; refer frequently to objectives and texts.

Thematic organization: emphasize central themes of your essay. Connect parts of essay to form a unified whole. Use transitions. Organize paragraphs with topic sentences. (Helpful websites: unity, continuity, and transition; Thesis, topic sentences, transition.)

The best exams use terms, themes, and objectives recognizable from class meetings, demonstrate understanding of terms and objectives with quick working definitions and application to examples from texts, while also extending and refreshing common materials with the student's own language, examples, and analyses of shared texts.

Lesser exams talk about the texts but ignore terms and objectives. Students write what they would have said before starting the course. Instructor thinks, "You could have written this without taking the course." Don't make me write this!