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official date: Thursday, 16 June 2016 |
(This webpage is the assignment for our course's midterm, to be reviewed and updated till 14 June.)
Three parts to Midterm: (All 3 essays will be revised and extended for your final exam.)
Essay 1.
Define
"genre"
and analyze your choice of examples:
Using the
Introduction to
Genres page, develop a "working definition" of
genre in three categories (Subject / Audience, Formal, Narrative) and
use them to analyze a genre of your choice. Cite, explain, and analyze two or more
text-examples of
your genre from your reading, viewing, or listening experience and 2 research sources
(probably term-pages) from the course website or beyond.
(total length: 4-7
substantial paragraphs, 2-3 double-spaced page equivalent)
Essay 2. Learning about
Tragedy: Describe your learning experience
with tragedy, referring to the Tragedy
term-site, Aristotle's
Poetics,
& Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy, and using examples from Aeschylus's
Oresteia trilogy, O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra: The Homecoming,
and possibly Sophocles's Oedipus the King
& Euripides's
The Bacchae
to illustrate the characteristics and
appeals of
the tragedy genre, especially the tragic narrative. (5-8 substantial paragraphs,
2-3 double-spaced page equivalent)
Essay 3. Special Topics on
Tragedy: Identify a
special topic relating to Tragedy
and
write the first half of an essay exploring and developing your topic relative to
two or more texts we've read so far. Refer to at least two research sources from
our course website or beyond. You may also
For more on Essays 1-3, scroll down to "Details on Midterm Content."
Format: email. No regular class meeting on Thursday 16 June. Classroom available. Instructor keeps office hours 9-12.
Email exams due to
whitec@uhcl.edu by midnight Friday,
17 June. "Submission window" is
15 June-17 June
midnight. Write in Word or Rich Text Format file;
attach to
email message to
whitec@uhcl.edu.
If you write on a Mac, paste contents into an email to
whitec@uhcl.edu and I'll save to my files.
Unusual feature of midterm and final exam: All 3 parts are session-long writing projects. In response to feedback from instructor, additional course readings, and your continued learning, your midterm essay drafts will be revised, updated, and extended in the Final Exam. The three essays you wrote for the Midterm become three longer, complete essays for the Final Exam.
Instructor reads each midterm essay as a more-or-less complete essay-in-progress. On the final exam you are expected to make improvements in response to feedback.
Rationale: Writing is Literature's most important skill, developing creative and critical thinking. The best-proven way to improve writing is through guided rewriting.
Special requirements:
All three essays must have
titles.
Somewhere in your midterm refer directly to something you learned from
another student's midterm or final exam on Model Assignments.
(Only one reference required in entire midterm, but more can be impressive.)
Concession: Contents of your three midterm essays may overlap with or repeat each other somewhat—no automatic discredit. Use common sense, be efficient, cross-reference.
Details on Midterm Content
Essay 1.
Define
"genre" and analyze your choice of examples:
Using the
Introduction to
Genres page, develop a "working definition" of
genre in three categories (Subject / Audience, Formal, Narrative) and
use them to analyze a genre of your choice. Cite, explain, and analyze two or more
text-examples of
your genre from your reading, viewing, or listening experience and 2 research sources
(probably term-pages) from the course website or beyond.
Length of Essay 1 on midterm:
4-7
paragraphs total (2-3 double-spaced page equivalent)
Content organization: Use classic "Definition-Example-Analysis" pattern.
General advice based on previous student submissions: Introduce your chosen genre and its text-example(s) as early as possible, and describe to explain the three genre categories. For instance, if your genre is "horror" and your main example is The Walking Dead, introduce The Walking Dead in your opening paragraph and use it to illustrate all three categories of genre: subject/audience, formal, narrative.
Choose and analyze a genre
Your genre may be any item (except tragedy) from the list of genres or elsewhere on webpage or in your experience. (You may compare-contrast or otherwise relate to tragedy, but not required.)
Your genre may be literary or extra-literary, for instance a category or genre of film, music, theater, dance, visual art (genre paintings), reality TV, sitcoms, stand-up comic monologues, etc.
Requirement for analyzing your choice of genre + text examples: You must describe or analyze your chosen genre through all three categories from Introduction to Genres:
Subject / Audience genre: What is the subject or content basis of your
chosen genre? Does your genre or the way it appears (esp. characters) correspond
to its audience?
Formal genre (narrator-individual speaker; dialogue b/w characters; narrator +
dialogue): Of these 3 voices or sets of voices, which characterizes
your text-examples? (e.g., if it's a movie, it's usually dialogue, but
variations are always possible) How does this formal genre appear in your
text-example? (Provide examples & analyze.)
Narrative genre: Tragedy, Comedy, Romance, Satire or combination(s): Which
of the four major story patterns plays out in your genre or text-example?
Variations and combinations always possible.
Since there are no pure genres, don't panic if these various categories overlap or become blurred, or if your genre or examples turn into or mix with other genres. Describe and evaluate.
Recall course attitude: genres aren't rules but conventions or family traits; not boxes but yardsticks. If genres morph, evolve, or connect with others, that's normal.
Beyond analyzing your genre in terms of Subject, Formal, and Narrative, consider describing your genre's appeals, interests, and benefits to its audience, society, etc. Consider analyzing in terms of entertainment / education balance.
If you can't finish describing everything in the time or space allowed, summarize how far you've gotten and indicate what remains. There's still the final exam!
General advice based on previous courses' midterms: Introduce your chosen genre and text-example(s) as early as possible, and use them to help explain or illustrate the three genre categories.
Warning: the biggest danger for students is neglecting instructional materials available on website.
Essay 2.
Learning
about Tragedy: Describe your learning experience
with tragedy, referring to the
Tragedy
term-site, Aristotle's
Poetics,
& Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy, and using examples from Aeschylus's
Oresteia trilogy, O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra: The Homecoming,
and possibly Sophocles's Oedipus the King
& Euripides's
The Bacchae
to illustrate the characteristics
and appeals of
the tragedy genre, especially the tragic narrative.
Length of Essay 2 on midterm: 5-8 paragraphs, 2-3 double-spaced
page equivalent.
Required references to texts: As examples and illustrations for your learning experience in Tragedy, you must refer to passages in The Oresteia and Mourning Becomes Electra. You may also refer briefly to other tragedies you know from beyond this course.
Advice on assignment: You can't cover everything about tragedy, but you want to try.
Use Tragedy term-page and instructional pages from coursesite.
Start with what's most interesting or promising or puzzling to you about tragedy, and illustrate with examples from course texts or beyond.
Connect your opening angle or insight to other qualities you're picking up about tragedy and what you've learned so far about these characteristics, with examples from course texts or beyond.
Consistent themes throughout course:
| The tragic flaw. | Spectacle |
| Tragedy compared / contrasted to comedy and romance. | Tragedy as learning and progress ("Suffering leads to wisdom"); entertainment & education. |
| Families as love and hate; co-dependent fates. Aristotle's Poetics 13c, 14c; Oedipal Conflict; Electra Complex. | As in Essay 1, analyze tragedy as subject / audience; formal genre; & narrative genre. See Tragedy term-page.. |
Depending on your emphases, you probably cannot refer to all these possibilities, and your essay is judged as much on unified organization as on coverage of content, but the best essays unify as much material as possible.)
Essay 3.
Special Topics on Tragedy:
Identify a
special topic
relating to Tragedy and
write the first half of an essay exploring and developing your topic relative to
two or more texts we've read so far. Refer to at least two research sources from
our course website or beyond (term-pages, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Model Assignments,
class discussion or lecture). You may also
Length of Essay 3 on midterm:
Required
Read research sources and / or model assignments recommended on special topics page.
Review tragedies read so far for examples of your topic's appearance.
Default essay organization:
What
did you
want to learn? Why did you choose this topic?
Where and how does your topic appear in our course texts?
(examples + analysis)
What
did you
find out or learn from your research sources? How does your topic appear in our
course texts?
Where
has this knowledge taken you? How has your view of your topic changed or
developed?
What
would you like to learn next? (following from what you learned so far)
How does this knowledge apply to our course or your understanding of tragedy or
genre?
Evaluation standards: Readability, competence levels, and interest.
Readability & surface competence: Your reader must be able to
process what you're reporting. Given the pressures of a timed writing exercise,
some rough edges are acceptable, but chronic errors or elementary style can hurt.
Content quality:
Comprehension of subject, demonstration of learning,
use of course resources including instructional webpages, + interest & significance: Make your reader *want* to
process your report. Make the information meaningful; make it
matter
to our study of literature and culture. Reproduce course materials accurately
but also refresh with your own insights and experiences.
Thematic Unity and Organization:
Unify materials along a line of thought that a reader can follow from start
to finish. (Consider "path of learning": what you started with, what you
encountered, where you arrived.) Consult instruction sites on
Unity / Continuity / Transition
& Transitions.
Grade and feedback: You will receive an overall midterm grade and notes for improving each part for the final exam.
