JUNIOR SEMINAR WRITING ASSIGNMENTS:
There will be frequent informal writing assignments in this class as well as a major project that includes independent and group work, research, drafts, comments on others' work, and an oral report. I hope working in groups and learning to give and receive comments on written work, ideas, and research will lighten the burden of this large project, enliven and broaden your thinking about your project, and help you develop skills in analysis, cooperation, and communication. Please give me a hard copy of all writing assignments AND post electronic copies on the class folder for other members of the class to consult if necessary.
THE MAJOR PROJECT:
The major project will involve groups of three or four students working both independently and together to produce a critical casebook, that is, a collection of essays and critical histories of a text or texts (like the Twentieth Century Views of Author X series you may be familiar with). Your casebooks will consist of an introduction, an annotated bibiliography, and several analytic essays with critical histories of a text (or related texts). Each student will be responsible for compiling an annotated bibliography, for writing an analytic essay and a critical history, for writing editing comments on two students' drafts of analytic essays, and for helping the group compile a master annotated bibliography and an introduction to the casebook. Each group will work with me to define its topics and text(s). Students should start now to think about texts that they have read with at least a forty-year critical history that allows study of significant developments in modes of criticism. Please note the due dates for the various stages of this assignment, including draft and final versions. Please note as well that each group will present its work to the class during our final meeting.
CHOOSING YOUR TEXT AND TOPIC:
You can be creative in defining your text or group of related texts. For example, students in a group could each choose a different poem, play, or novel that was published around the same time; or different works by Dickinson, or Shelley, or Henry James; or any other set of texts that could justifiably be the topic of a casebook or collection of essays. Just bear in mind that this is a one-semester project with several related aims: to allow you to learn about doing research and about developments in critical methods in the twentieth century, and to allow you to write a substantive analytic essay that builds on your research on a particular topic and text that you are interested in. Your initial research proposal should outline a specific interpretive question. As you reread your text and begin your research into others' critical writings on it, it will be very useful to write frequently and informally, for yourself, about what you find interesting and want to pursue in your analysis of this text. Your definition of your topic and question will no doubt change over the course of the semester, and it really helps to have a focus, as well as a record of the development of your thoughts.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICAL HISTORY:
Identify twenty-five critical articles (or chapters of books) and write a precis of each to create an annotated bibliography (for examples of annotated bibliographies, check single-author monographs or annual compilations in journals such as the Chaucer Review). Balance the distribution of works over time; for example, you might choose two from before 1960; two from 1961-1965; four from 1966-1975; seven from 1975-1989; ten from 1990 to the present. By writing a precis of one of the critical essays we read in the first two weeks of class and of an independently-located article on the "Knight's Tale," you will have a chance to practice summarizing a critical argument effectively. A handout and a model are available on the web page. As you accumulate your citations and annotations, arrange your bibliography CHRONOLOGICALLY (not alphabetically, as you will in your thesis, or in most other work). Write a brief critical history of your text or texts (5-6 pages, i.e., 1500-1750 words); this critical history should introduce the annotated bibliography by providing a rationale for the inclusion or exclusion of works, and by developing a brief account of the main trends in the critical scholarship you have surveyed. After writing your individual bibliography and analytic essay, you will work with other members of the group to collate entries to create a master bibliography and to write an introduction to the casebook you have produced.
ANALYTIC ESSAY:
Write an analytic essay (10-12 pages, i.e., 3000-4000 words), defining and discussing a critical question of your own definition about the work you have researched. In other words, this paper will NOT be a critical history of your text; it will be a critical argument. You may want to situate your discussion in the context of what you've discovered other critics have said about your text. You may want to argue with one critic's reading in particular. You will want to have a clear sense of your argument, and you need not feel discouraged if it seems to you closely related to arguments made by other critics. In the process of writing this paper, you will review and comment on each other's drafts, revise your essay, and collaborate on a jointly-authored essay introducing the collection of essays your group produces. Both your group members and I will comment on your draft essay.
These assignments are meant to encourage independent research and thought as well as collaborative work, allowing individuals to learn how to build on each other's thoughtful contributions to create a joint project that is greater than the sum of its parts. The aim is not to beat each other out in a competition, but to explore and create individually and together. By reading and commenting on each other's work, you can each learn more than any one of you would alone.
WRITING DUE DATES AND POLICIES:
Take some time to look over these due dates and to transfer them to your calendar or another organizational aid to which you will have easy access over the semester. Remember, please give me hard copy of all writing assignments AND post electronic copies on the class folder.
Due dates have been carefully worked out to help you complete the major assignment in manageable pieces, to allow me to give you timely feedback, and to enable you to comment on each others' work at useful junctures. Extensions will be given in the case of severe illness or bona fide emergencies; in such cases, please get in touch with me as soon as possible to discuss your needs.
You may take a 24-hour (or weekend) extension by doing both of two things: 1) participate actively in the class before the assignment is due and 2) turn in something written on the due date. You might, for example, turn in an unfinished draft on which you've noted when you will hand in the finished assignment. It would be acceptable (if less desirable!), to turn in a note saying you will hand in the assignment the next day (or Monday, for a Friday due date).
Except in the case of emergencies, you must hand in something on the due date to receive credit for that part of the assignment, and you must hand in the assignment within 24 hours (or on Monday) to receive comments from me.
W Sept. 6: Precis due
W Sept. 13 Research proposal due
W Sept. 20 Knight's Tale : Critical Article Citation and Precis due
Sept. 21 Library Seminar Room (Lib 221): research and bibliography with Jack Levine.
MON Oct. 2: List of 15 Citations due
W Oct.4 Partial annotated bibliography due, part I (3+ citations)
W Oct 11 Partial annotated bibliography due, part II (20+ citations)
OCTOBER 14-22 FALL BREAK
F Oct. 27: RD of essay due
F Nov. 3: Annotated bibliography due (25 citations)
F Nov. 10 Draft of critical history due
MON Nov. 13 Comments on essay rough drafts due to writers
F Dec. 1 Final Draft of Essay and Critical History due
Reading/Exam Week: Complete casebook with preface, consolidated bibliography, analytic essays and critical histories.