LITR 4368 Literature of the Future Final Exam assignment 2016 Official date: 3 March (attendance not required) Email submission window: 26 April-4 May

This webpage constitutes this semester's final exam assignment, to be updated until Tueday, 26 April, when paper copies will be distributed.

Relative weight: 40-50% of final grade

Format & schedule: In-class or email; open-book and open-notebook. Attendance not required on 3 May 2016.

Email students take final any time after class on Tuesday 26 April. Deadline for email submission is Wednesday, 4 May. 

Students may use classroom during regular class period and turn in exam by arrangement with instructor. Instructor keeps office hours 4-10pm on 3 March.

Final grade reports will be emailed about a week after the final exam date.

Special Requirements:

Title both essays.

Essay 1: Refer to at least one previous final exam Essay 1 from a previous class's Model Assignments  (Final exam samples 2015; Final samples 2013; Final samples 2011; Final samples 2009; Final samples 2007)

Essay 2 may use 1 or 2 of our course's term-sites or previous Essay 2's as outside research sources but not required.

Text requirements: Essay 1 requires 3-4 texts since midterm, but you may also refer to pre-midterm texts for examples. Essay 2 requires at least 4 course texts (2 since midterm) and four outside references (details below). 

Website expectations: You are expected to refer to materials on the appropriate course instructional pages for the "Scenarios of the Future" you select for Essay 1.

Content: 2 essays

Essay 1: Course Content Essay: “visions or scenarios of the future” (5-8 paragraphs) Referring to 3-4 (or more) texts (at least 3 since midterm), organize a comparative discussion of 2 or more “visions or scenarios of the future” (Obj. 2). Compare and contrast your selected scenarios in terms of their visions of the future and their literary styles and appeals.

Essay 2: Research & Reading Essay Concluded (7-10 paragraphs total, including revised Essay 2 from midterm): Referring to course readings and outside sources, revise and extend the Essay 2 Personal / Professional research topic you started  in your pre-midterm and midterm. Explain your interest, your research, your learning, and its potential significance to self, career, society, etc. Review, rethink, and revise what you wrote for your midterm Essay 2 and connect to new paragraphs for final exam. Apply your research and learning to two or more texts since the midterm and integrate at least two additional outside sources.

Final Exam Content Details—Two Assigned Topics > Two (2) Essays total

Essay 1: Course Content Essay: “visions or scenarios of the future” (5-8 paragraphs) Referring to 3-4 (or more) texts (at least 3 since midterm), organize a comparative discussion of 2 or more “visions or scenarios of the future” (Obj. 2). Compare and contrast your selected scenarios in terms of their visions of the future and their literary styles and appeals.

2. To identify, describe, and criticize typical visions or scenarios of the future (seen from 2015).  

a. High tech; virtual reality—slick, cool, unreal, easy with power (+ cyberpunk style)

b. Low tech; actual reality—rough, intimate, messy, hungry, warm, real

c. Utopia / dystopia & ecotopia—perfectly planned worlds / dysfunctional worlds / + ecology

d. Alien contact—exploring and being explored

Length: 5-8 paragraphs of 4-5 sentences each.

Text requirements: at least 3-4 texts since midterm, but you may also refer to pre-midterm texts for examples.

Special requirements: Refer to at least one final exam Essay 1 from Model Assignments: 2015 final exams, 2013 final exams, 2011 final exams.

Possible prompts: alternative terms for "visions and scenarios": thought-experiments, outline, features, dimensions, aspects, possibilities, options.

What did you know or sense of your scenarios before? Refer to previous readings, films, or other media.

Why did you choose the scenarios you chose? Why do they matter to you, based on your previous knowledge, reading, or viewing? (Refer to specific examples from 3-4 course texts.)

What did you learn about how these scenarios are presented or their consequences? What appeals to readers? What downsides or repulsions? (Refer to specific examples from 3-4 course texts.)

What kind of future is modeled? Decline or progress? Utopian / Dystopian? Hope or fear? On what basis? (Refer to specific examples from 3-4 course texts.)

What kind of future do you want to live in or read about?

Advice for combining or relating scenarios:

compare / contrast High Tech & Low Tech

compare or combine High Tech, Low Tech, & Ecotopia; or Low Tech & Ecotopia

compare or combine Alien Contact & High Tech

compare / contrast Alien Contact & Ecotopia

Using "Entertain & Instruct" spectrum, compare / contrast frequently-escapist appeals of Alien Contact and High Tech with instructional appeals and social engagement of Ecotopia and Low Tech.

Discuss one or more of the scenarios and their stories as representatives of science fiction or speculative fiction style and appeals.

Connect scenarios to narratives, styles, and appeals of pre-midterm terms and themes; e.g. apocalypse, evolution, alternative futures, post-apocalyptic.

Essay 2: Research & Reading Essay Concluded (7-10 paragraphs total, including revised Essay 2 from midterm): Referring to course readings and outside sources, revise and extend the Essay 2 Personal / Professional research topic you started  in your pre-midterm and midterm. Explain your interest, your research, your learning, and its potential significance to self, career, society, etc. Review, rethink, and revise what you wrote for your midterm Essay 2 and connect to new paragraphs for final exam. Apply your research and learning to two or more texts since the midterm and integrate at least two additional outside sources.

Describe & rationalize your choice of research topic, identify its appearance in or significance to our course's readings and objectives, describe what you learned from outside sources regarding your research topic, and apply the significance of what you have learned to your personal / professional future or our collective future.

"personal" = what you've learned or thought before + personal future

"professional" = application to student career, teaching career, or other professional plans

"collective" = application to our common future, how we work and learn together (or not)

Text and Research requirements: Revise and extend the draft you wrote for your midterm, adding at least two additional course texts since midterm and at least two additional outside sources. (If course texts can't apply, explain which texts come nearest or account for your attempts to fit your topic to our course readings.)

"Outside sources" may include some combination of primary, secondary, or background sources from our course website, the internet, library research, and / or personal reading. The prestige and quality of these sources may vary widely, with varying effects on the quality of your essay, but a lot depends on how well you identify and integrate the ideas that catch your interest.

Primary sources might include fiction, films, video games, TV series, documentaries.

Secondary sources might include a course term-page (e.g. science fiction, millennialism) and / or a previous Essay 2 on a similar subject written for the 2011, 2013, or 2015 Model Assignments. Other impressive possibilities include scholarly articles and books accessed through UHCL's Neumann Library have the most prestige and bring the most credit. Film or video documentaries on your subject count for good credit.

Background sources might include interviews with teachers or other knowledgeable acquaintances; encyclopedias, and companions to literature that provide basic generic, biographical, or historical information. Background sources on the Web start with Wikipedia or other more or less specialized websites providing common knowledge or basic information on varied topics. Documentation at such sites can lead you to more specialized sources.

(You don't have to do all three—just detailing options.)

Evaluation standards: Readability, competence levels, content quality, thematic organization. 

Readability & surface competence: Your reader must be able to process what you're reporting. Some rough edges are acceptable, but chronic errors or elementary style limit quality.

Content quality: Evidence of learning.

Use of course resources (objectives, terms, lecture, discussion, instructional links, coverage of required texts.); comprehension of subject; demonstration of learning, quality of research.

+ interest & significance: Make your reader want to process your essays. Make the information meaningful. Make everything matter to our study of literature and culture.

Thematic organization: Unify materials along a line of thought that a reader can follow from start to finish.