LITR 4632
Literature of the Future
Midterm Assignment

Relative weight: 30-40% of final grade

Format: In-class or email; open-book and open-notebook. Instructor keeps office hours during class period.

Date: Thursday, 20 June. Email students can email the midterm to whiteC@uhcl.edu any time after Tuesday class (18 June) up to noon Friday, 21 June. (If you need more time, email to account.)

Content: 2 essay questions

  • Essay 1 (1.5-2 hours): Compare, contrast, and evaluate Narratives of the Future
  • Essay 2 (1 hour): Isolate a personal/professional topic in our course or readings (to be extended in final exam) 

Length(s): Essay 1 probably 5-8 paragraphs; Essay 2 probably 4-7 paragraphs.

Special Requirements / Instructions:

  • Both essays must have titles

  • Refer to at least one midterm answer from a previous class on course webpage's Model Assignments at some point in your exam.

  • Required textual references: You must refer to Revelation, Parable, and Time Machine + 3-4 stories somewhere in your exam.

  • You may refer briefly to future-vision presentations & outside readings but not required.

  • Texts relevant to midterm include Genesis and Revelation; Parable of the Sower; "Stone Lives"; "Bears Discover Fire"; Time Machine; "Somebody up there Likes Me"; "Garden of Forking Paths"; "Gernsback Continuum"; "Mozart in Mirrorshades"; "Better Be Ready 'bout Half Past Eight"

  • You may refer to texts in abbreviated form, e. g. Parable, “Garden,” “Gernsback.”

  • Don't copy out long quotations. Quote briefly and selectively, and analyze the language quoted.

  • Overlap between the two essays is possible. Just be efficient.

Special Advice: Don't hurry to email exam. When finished, take a break, then edit and improve.

To enhance content, connect the course as offered to your own interests and insights.

  • Refer repeatedly but efficiently to Course Objectives, terms, and texts to show you can speak the language of the course and its subject as common ground for you and instructor (writer and reader).

  • Bring forward and develop your own examples, insights, and extensions of the ideas in the course. Don't find reasons to say no to your best possibilities.

Email your answers to instructor at whiteC@uhcl.edu.

·               most common mistake: students send to “white” rather than “whiteC”

·                Attach appropriate word processing file(s) to an email for whiteC@uhcl.edu. (Microsoft Word works, Microsoft Works doesn't)

·                Copy and paste contents of your word processing file into an email message to me at whiteC@uhcl.edu

Email acknowledgement: Instructor usually acknowledges receipt of your midterm within a few hours (unless you send it in at an odd time).

Email problems? A problem or two with email is normal in a class this size. Don't panic—we'll work things out.

Spacing: No need to double-space, but OK if you do. All electronic submissions are converted to single-space for reading onscreen.  

 

Midterm Content Outline—Two (2) Question Topics > (2) Essays total

Essay 1 (1.5-2 hours): Compare, contrast, and evaluate Narratives of the Future (5-8 paragraphs?)

·                  Referring to Objective 1, describe and evaluate the three primary narratives for the future. How do they differ, and how might they combine?

·        Refer frequently to texts and objectives. Move back and forth from terms, examples, themes.

·        How can you tell one narrative of the future from another, but also how each can turn into the other? Where or how do these narratives overlap or conflict?

·        Not required to go through 3 narratives one at a time; also possible to organize through "how they turn into each other"

Additional options: (You need not cover each item individually or in order.)

·        What models of human attitudes and behavior or destiny follow from these narratives? (e.g., decline or progress?)

·        What literary and cultural attractions or appeals to these narratives? What downsides or detractions?

Essay 2 (1 hour): Isolate a personal / professional topic in our course or readings (to be extended in final exam) (4-7 paragraphs?)

Connect personal and / or professional reactions to course contents, 1+ course objectives, and 2-3 texts, unifying material to focus on how this course or its materials can work for your future.

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

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

Question: What themes, ideas, aspects, or element(s) of our course intrigue you or matter most? Why? What issue(s) seem most important and worth reading and discussing? What do you learn about your interests or assumptions? How can you imagine Literature of the Future playing into your future?

Your emphasis may be literary, cultural-social-historical, or both, but use examples from texts to illustrate and develop insights, and use terms and objectives to connect to the course.

Overlap with Essay 1 is possible.

Optional prompts: What difficulties or cautions naturally attend comprehension and expression regarding the future?

What difference do such stories make? Especially considering how long we've been telling them? Do all of us manage alternative futures?

Connect examples from texts to contemporary-future scene.

Possibly connect your theme to Literature of Ideas

Don't feel pressure to conform to views of instructor. The point of the essay is to show yourself learning.

 

Evaluation standards:

As in most Literature courses, quality of reading and writing distinguishes excellent work from competent work—not just reproducing data but organizing it into a unified, compelling essay.

Introducing and developing multiple examples from texts and relating texts to each other are standards for better exams.

·        "Develop" means  extending analysis, connecting to other examples (compare / contrast), and connecting to course objectives.

Audience:

  • Share your experience in the course with future students who may read your writing in "Model Assignments."
  • Or write so someone in our class could recognize your terms and explanations and enjoy your personal contributions or styles.
  • Keep the instructor in sight. Connect through shared terms, texts, and objectives. "Write up" in terms of organization and ambition of thought.

Grading standards

Instructor's response often focuses on writing and organization as tranferable skills. For content, instructor often encourages students to "use course terms and objectives more frequently and systematically." The impression you don't want to give is that "you could have written this exam without taking the course!" 

Returning your midterms

Receipt of your email midterm will be acknowledged by reply email within a few hours.

Around Sunday 23 June, check for your midterm note and grade emailed from instructor.

 

midterm preparation: how to prepare?

review notes, skim texts—recall characters, events, situations, ideas relevant to 3 future narratives

review course objectives for terms, themes, etc.

take notes from notes—jot down ideas, examples, then arrange

review previous midterm samples—won't take long to find something to work with—models help kick-start thinking

recall examples from web highlights:

  • relate terms and texts
  • express ideas also with your own terms, understandings, and examples
  • reproduce content of class and add to it