Your final piece of writing for the semester (and for some of you, for your college career) is designed to help you surface and articulate the significance of your experiences and insights in this class. [I hope that you'll use the in-class writing we did a few weeks ago as a starting point.]

Please describe 3-5 specific moments, experiences, texts, etc. that have had a major impact on your development as a reader/writer/thinker/literary critic/English major (please include at least ONE text that has really mattered to you!!). For each, explain HOW that moment shifted or changed you, and WHY that shift is important in your development. In essence, you’re close reading your own experiences here to locate the important themes that have arisen in the last 3 months.

Once you have described and analyzed your experiences, write a short introduction and conclusion that track the themes that emerged from your reflection. What terms, concepts, and phrases  provide evidence of the complex ways that your thinking/being has progressed and shifted over the course of your time?

In sum, the paper should:

• be 4-8 pages
• include specific descriptions of important texts (at least one!)/moments/events in your development as a reader/writer/thinker
• feature concrete explanations of HOW those texts/moments/events affected you
• articulate WHY those effects matter
• isolate the important themes that occur across your analyses of your experiences

**Friday, 5/1 @ 5 p.m.: reflective essays due via email**

You have two options for your final presentation:

OPTION ONE

Please prepare a 7-10 minute presentation that includes the following:

1) a concise but thorough statement of your argument

2) the major theories or secondary critiques (include author’s names and work titles) that your argument draws on or contradicts. (in other words, what is the conversation about the novel in which you are participating?)

3) an example or two from the primary text, and an analysis of these that exemplifies your argument

4) a statement that addresses why your argument is important, and to whom.

Feel free to address these in any order that makes the most sense to you!

ORAL PRESENTATION AND VISUALS:
Your delivery can be relatively informal (as long as you can address the goals above). Please do prepare a blog post or one-page handout so that your audience can follow your train of thought (including your argument and primary source passages would be useful, for example). HOWEVER—–plan to deliver the majority of your presentation extemporaneously. In other words…Do Not Simply READ your handout/post!

Finally, at the end of your presentation, ask for questions and answer them.

OPTION TWO

Work with a partner to develop a 7-15 minute presentation that shows the ways that your individual research is relevant to a larger conversation about the novel; in essence.  I’ll expect to see each of the kinds of evidence listed above (your respective arguments from your papers, examples from primary texts, etc.), but here the majority of the presentation would be spent  explaining a significant question or conversation about the novel (e.g., the role of character), significant theoretical statements about it, and a discussion of the ways that your work intervenes into that discussion.

You’ll still want to produce something visual for the group to look at (a handout, a blog post, etc.).  Please also be aware that you and your partner will share the same grade for the presentation.

As we hurtle toward the end of the semester, here are the most important deadlines to keep in mind:

Monday, April 20: draft and copies of draft due in class!

Wednesday, April 22: blog portfolios due in class! [The blog portfolio is simply a list of the following:

• The post numbers, titles and dates posted.  [EXAMPLE:  Post #1: "Foxfire Burns!", 1/16]
• Each comment #, whose blog it is posted on, title of that post, and date you commented. [EXAMPLE"  Comment #1, Jane's blog, "Foxfire Burns!", 1/18]  ]

Monday, April 27: presentations due!

Wednesday, April 29: RESEARCH PAPERS DUE in class!!!!

Friday, 5/1 @ 5 p.m.: Reflective Essays DUE via email.

The purpose of the two pieces of this assignment is to get you thinking, writing and researching for your literary research projects, without throwing you into the deep end.  So, please read the directions below carefully.  We’ll also work on these in class on Wednesday.  The entire project is due, via email, on Tuesday, April 14 at NOON.

Part I: Project Abstract (50/100 pts)

An abstract is a short description of your project, the conversation that it contributes to, and its relevance.  It’s a form that literary scholars use to briefly communicate their ideas to one another (for conferences, for publication proposals, etc.)

In 500 words (1 type-written, single-spaced page and NO MORE!), please complete the following:

• Paragraph 1: 3-5 sentences that provide the context for your thesis, and a well-constructed statement of your thesis.  Things to consider for context: what conversation are you contributing to with your thesis?  Are you intervening into popular or critical discussion about the novel as a form?  About a specific novel (e.g., Myra Breckinridge)? About a function of the novel (e.g., character)?  Some of your preliminary research should come in handy for helping you to think about this larger conversation…
• Paragraph 2 (or 3 if you need more than 1): construct a brief narrativeoutline of your argument here.  HOW do you plan to support your thesis?  What moves will you make?  You can give a specific example or even a brief quote from the novel or a secondary source here if it helps.
• Final Paragraph: 2-5 sentences that explain the relevance of your argument—why does it matter?  To what audience will it matter most?

Part II: Annotated Bibliography (50/100 pts)

An annotated bibliography is a good way to record your thoughts about a particular article and how it contributes to the overall body of research that goes into your paper.

Plan to include at least 5 sources, which show a mix of the kinds of research that you will consider.  Plan to include AT LEAST one secondary journal article on your specific topic/novel—if not two or three.  Include at least one essay/article that addresses the role of your topic within the genre of the novel as a whole (e.g., “the function of character in the novel;” “effect of the novel on readers”, etc.).  If you are writing about a contemporary novel, or are considering the novel’s reception in a contemporary climate, you may also need to include book reviews, author interviews, etc.

For each of your five sources, please include the following:

• proper MLA citation of the source.  [remember that MLA guidelines have changed this year.  Consult the OWL for up-to-date information.]
• 2-4 sentences that summarize the argument for the source, and its primary terms, references, etc.  BE SPECIFIC HERE.  (For example, avoid this: “This article is basically about Marxism in the novel.”  Try something more like this: “In this article, the author argues that a the novel as a genre supports bourgeois ideology, and suggests a countervailing Marxist interpretive strategy.  This strategy consists of…”)
• 2-4 sentences that imagine HOW the source might be relevant to your own argument, even if only as a counter-argument.  BE SPECIFIC HERE.
• Put your sources and their annotations in alphabetical order, by author’s last name.

Ostensibly, the purpose of a literary research paper is to highlight the processes that are central and unique to literary study: the close analysis of literature and theory, resulting in a thesis that synthesizes the existent body of current research in order to make a relevant and unique contribution to that research.

In your projects then, I’ll be looking for the elements below:

• Original argument that identifies its contribution to the field or relevant sub-field of literary study
• Textual analysis of primary source(s)
• Close work with secondary sources
• Synthesis of major discussions/conversations in secondary materials, relevant to your argument
• 12-17 pages
• 10-20 sources [a mix of theory, secondary scholarly sources, and where appropriate, reviews, history, contemporaneous cultural sources, etc.]
• MLA internal citation and bibliography

As to the content of your project and the topic of the course:  ideally, I would like your paper to make a contribution to our understanding of the novel as a genre—its history, its theory, its effects, its uses, its audiences, etc.  However, I’m much more invested in your ability to construct and support your own argument, which may or may not be invested in contributing to the scholarship on the genre.  Thus, the bare minimum is this: please plan to use a novel as a primary source, and to give at least some small consideration of the significance of its import as a novel within the larger scope of your argument (this may be a few paragraphs, this may be a couple of pages, depending). You may, of course, choose a novel that we’ve read as a group for your primary source.  You may also, in consultation with me, choose a different novel.  Finally, if you have an idea for a project that is analytical, researched and relevant but is NOT the traditional literary research paper  (ie., a short film, an art project, a puppet show, etc.), please see me.

We’ll be working on the project and its associated assignments in stages, so as to attend to your argument and the research as it develops.  Note the schedule below:

• 4/8: draft of project abstract and preliminary research due in class for workshop
• 4/14: Project Abstract and Annotated Bibliography DUE by noon.
• 4/27: project presentations begin
• 4/29: Final draft of project due in class.

I have, yet again, updated our course schedule.  Please refer to the online version, as we are now hopelessly lost from the print version.

Erinn has located the imaginary trailer for Native Speaker, and has posted it to her blog here.

Just a quick refresher:  in class, we’ll discuss the very beginning of Chang-rae Lee’s Native Speaker (pp. 1-46).   Your snazzy exploratory drafts, aren’t due until later tomorrow evening.  Midnight, to be exact.

When I was Myra Breckinridge, the goddess of the late sixties and symbol of all that was best in Hollywood, I began, blindly, I confess, my restructuring of the sexes.  Through the anal penetration of what that sone of a bitch my uncle Buck Loner used to call your average hundred-precent all-American stud, I shifted the self-image of one Rusty Godowski (boyfriend to the dread Mary-Ann) from bull to heifer.  With a single gesture I was able, once and for all, to shatter the false machismo of the American male.  As the world now knows, my total victory over Rusty, et al., put an end not only to the American conquest of Asia but to the previously undisputed primacy of the combustion engine.

Unfortunately, my creation of Unisex proved to be no more than a stopgap.  I did not go far enough (except with myself and, mea culpa, I humbly confess that when I made myself Myra Breckinridge, I did so simply in order to be unique).  I realize now that in my petty selfishness I was deliberately denying others what I was so quick to claim as my own rebrith-rite.  Worse, it isnow evident that I have doomed the entire human race to death from famine and pestilence as the result of overpopulation because, thanks to my efforts, the American male now lacks the arrogant sexula thrust to conduct those wars thatin the past were so necessary to population control through the playful use of antipersonnel weaponry.  Yet the American male–like all makes–still continues mindlessly to reproduce.  I made him spiritual heifer but not total heifer.  In a nutshell, I unmanned the American male when I should have demanned him. 

…But obviously, that is only the beginning.  Something new, vital must take the lace of this sturdy lineman once he is rid of his lethal genitalia.  Therefore, I shall, solemnly, share with him my glory…I shall pump silicone into [his] tiny breast and introduce femal hormoned into his bloodstream.  Then, after a crash course in makeup and skin care, I shall present him to a grateful world as a fun-loving, sterile Amazon.  A few press conferences, perhaps a lecture tour of the major cities, a documentary film and my fun-loving sterile Amazon will be the ideal of every red-blooded American boy.  Something to emulate.  Population will then decrease at such a rate that by 1973 we shoudl see the human race in perfect harmony with the environment, while, best of all, we shal be living in a joyous word dominated by fun-loving sterile Amazons, at leace with one another and the Arab emirates. 

(278-80)

The purpose of an exploratory draft is to use the writing process to formulate a research topic.  In this way, it acts as a first step in the generation of a polished research paper.  Plan to turn in 7-10 pages of structured, thoughtful informal writing, using the directions below as prompts. Draft Due 3/16 by midnight, via email.
Part I:  Working with Your Own Ideas
The purpose of an exploratory draft is to capture the themes/ideas/obsessions that have arisen in your thinking over the past 8 weeks, and to build on those as you identify and deepen your interest in a research question.

Read back over your blog posts and comments and look for recurring patterns (e.g., Are you persistently writing about character?  About a specific theme?  About a particular function of readers like empathy, disgust, etc.?). At a minimum, choose three of your own quotes, include them in the paper. Close read your own quotations, looking for important words, tone, etc.  What do you see in your own writing that might generate a topic? In other words: what questions or ideas about novels do you see yourself grappling with, and how can those ideas be extended?

Some possible approaches to close reading your quotations might include: What new interpretations do you suggest for a particular novel? What new interpretive strategies do you explore that might be applicable to a different novel of your choosing? What formal/aesthetic qualities do you admire/despise? Which themes or content areas were you obsessed with/did you dismiss out of hand? Which questions still excite you, and which are you done with?

Part II: Moving from Your Ideas to a Larger Conversation about the Novel
For the final research paper, I’m going to ask you to make an argument about THE novel (as a genre) by focusing on A novel (that you have expertise with).  In other words, your argument will hopefully explain what a single novel can tell us about the category of novels as a whole.

Below, I’ve listed a series of writing prompts about the novel.  Please choose two to respond to, integrating the themes/ideas/questions you’ve identified in Part I of this assignment.  (In other words, write a reaction to two of the prompts below, which address the novel in general, using your insights about specific novels above.)

1. What kind of relationship does the novel establish with a reader, and how does it do it?
2. True or false: the novel is particularly well-qualified to shed light on certain ideas.  [What are its qualifications?  What are the ideas?]
3. Some manifesto-like statements (pick one to agree or disagree with):

• Henry James:  “A novel is in its broadest definition a personal, a direct impression of life: that, to begin with, constitutes its value, which is greater or less according to the intensity of the impression. But there will be no intensity at all, and therefore no value, unless there is freedom to feel and say.”
• Virginia Woolf:  “I believe that all novels…deal with character, and that it is to express character—not preach doctrines, sing songs, or celebrate the glories of the British Empire, that the form of the novel, so clumsy, verbose, and undramatic, so rich, elastic, and alive, has been evolved.”
• John Gardner:  “A novel is like a symphony in that its closing movement echoes and resounds with all that has gone before. . . . Toward the close of a novel. . . . unexpected connections begin to surface; hidden causes become plain; life becomes, however briefly and unstably, organized; the universe reveals itself, if only for the moment, as inexorably moral; the outcome of the various characters’ actions is at last manifest; and we see the responsibility of free will.”
• Terry Eagleton:  The novel is “one of the great revolutionary cultural forms of human history.”