2 options for taking exam

• in-class: 3-6pm during class period Tuesday, 17 June; write in ink in bluebook or on notebook paper (fronts and backs of pages okay; single-spacing okay, or write on word program and print-out or email) or on laptop. Bring notes, texts, laptop, outlines, drafts to class. Write exam in 3 hours. In-class midterms are graded separately from emails.
  
• email: anytime after class on Monday 16 June and by sometime Wednesday 18 June; write in Word or Rich Text Format file; attach and paste into email message to whitec@uhcl.edu (or reply to my email)

Email students may take breaks and write parts in installments + review & revise.

Attendance not required on 17 June unless you take exam in-class.

Instructor keeps office hours during class period, 3-6 17 June. Welcome to visit, phone, email re midterm or otherwise.

value: app. 25-35% of final grade (grades not computed numerically)

Contents: 2 essays of 6-9 paragraphs each (details below)

• Essay 1: Describe and analyze the American Immigrant narrative, its prominent patterns, motives, stages, values, and variations including "the American Dream."

• Essay 2: Compare and contrast the minority and immigrant narratives, with attention to USA's dominant culture.

• (Don't fear overlap b/w essays. In fact, the two essays may cross-reference for efficiency. For instance, Essay 2 might refer to points made in Essay 1, and Essay 1 might preview Essay 2. Manage repetitions efficiently and consciously.)

Special Requirements:

• Title your essays.

• Refer to at least one previous midterm from course's Model Assignments. (More than one such reference is welcome and usually impressive.)

• Refer to objectives and terms; develop or vary their meanings relative to your readings and analysis.

Details

• Essay 1: Describe and analyze the American Immigrant narrative, its prominent patterns, motives, stages, values, and variations including "the American Dream."

Refer to 5-6 course texts, including at least one early American source (5 June), at least two short fictions from Imagining America, ± other online texts, poems, web reviews, and critical sources. (Welcome also to refer to outside reading, but concentrate on class readings.)

Refer to aspects of objectives 1, 2, and 4.

Celebrate and criticize: acknowledge aesthetic and ideological resonance of the immigrant narrative while uncovering narrative or cultural limits or consequences.

Consider the power of narrative as a cultural and literary construct. (cultural narrative)

• Essay 2: Compare and contrast the minority and immigrant narratives with some references to the Dominant Culture as either the immigrant culture or more.

Refer to 4-5 course texts total, mostly minority narratives, poems, and other coursesite sources, but also 1-2 immigrant or dominant-culture narratives for comparison or contrast.

Shift your focus from the immigrant narrative to the minority narrative, but use the immigrant narrative as a background for comparison-contrast.

Keep objectives 1 & 2 in play, but highlight features from Objective 3.

Following items are possible prompts, not a checklist—no way to do them all:

How do the minority and immigrant narratives inform and expose each other?

How much are they in dialogue with each other, and how much are they opposed or polarized? In what ways? How is the American Dream narrative challenged or reinforced? (Many shades of gray)

Evaluate assimilation both positively and negatively. How does the appropriateness of assimilation vary for immigrants and minorities? What variations on assimilation are possible? (obj. 3c)

other possible terms or dialogues

• assimilation and resistance (obj. 3c)

• the ethnic group’s original relation with USA & resulting Social Contract

• the “color code” (obj. 3f)

• "model minorities" and true minorities

Evaluation standards:

general guidelines for exam grades

For literary studies, quality of writing as evidence of learning is a criterion for distinguishing excellent work from competent work. Most written assignments aren’t judged on whether they’re right or wrong but how well they develop their ideas

Surface quality & style: At the graduate level, competence with surface issues like spelling, punctuation, and grammar is taken for granted. An occasional careless error won't kill your grade, given time pressures, but repeated or chronic errors are remarked and factored as part of your grade. If you have trouble with spelling, word endings, punctuation, etc., get help from a mentor or tutor (as long as they explain their suggestions).

Most common problems in comparable midterms:

Students ignore syllabus organization & objectives and discuss as they would have regardless of seminar, recycling personal or unexamined opinions, old ideas from other classes, or hallway conversations (all of which you may use as long as you analyze & connect to course texts and objectives).

Students stress over documentation style or formatting instead of content, organization, and surface style.

Students think they must agree with instructor even if unsure what he's talking about or why. As long as you discuss the course in its own terms, don't be afraid to struggle or argue. Consciously struggling with contradictions can create good criticism.

Ignoring course objectives and terms

Failing to proofread and edit before submission

More positively:

• Mix your language, terminology, and personal and reading experience with the course's language, terms, and contents.

• Most important or winning qualities: show yourself learning; make the course materials matter.

Possible writing strategies

• One entrance to essays may be a “personal path of learning” in identifying and distinguishing multicultural or ethnic groupings, but expand from personal to cultural or educational.

• Welcome to personalize the essay somewhat, explaining personal and educational backgrounds in such subjects, along with your attitudes toward multicultural literature or how our local and global worlds are changing through immigration. But keep returning to course objectives, shared texts, and cultural-historical backgrounds.

• You need not agree with the instructor—many conflicting ideas and attitudes in such a big subject! The best exams review some central ideas from the course but extend them in interesting and rewarding directions.

Spend about 3+ hours drafting your exam. Email students may take breaks and write parts in installments.

Take time for review & revision: Rest, edit, review, revise before sending--better late than wrong.