November 2009 Archives

Moved from Nov 18: This paper is due online on the 23rd.

Write a paper that uses peer-reviewed academic sources to defend an intellectually complex, non-obvious claim about one or more of the works on the syllabus. Your paper should demonstrate your developing ability to apply a consistent critical approach (economic determinism, gender theory, historical-topical, etc.), to integrate quotations from quality sources (at least 4, in addition to your literary work or works), and to acknowledge a variety of interpretations (including evidence that challenges your thesis).

Anything goes, so long as you

1. produce something to be performed or otherwise shared during class time
2. demonstrate your ability to engage creatively and critically with a literary text from our syllabus
3. articulate your goals and a meaningful way of assessing your achievement
4. reflect on your accomplishment (quoting from responses you receive from your classmates)

In the past, students have filmed video skits, written original short stories and poetry, or published research on their weblogs. Every year I suggest interpretive dance, but so far nobody has actually done it.

Depending on class size, everyone will have about five minutes. If you double up with a partner, the two of you will share 10 minutes.

Wikipedia's page on W.E.B. Du Bois

When sticks and stones and beasts form the sole environment of a people, their attitude is largely one of determined opposition to and conquest of natural forces. But when to earth and brute is added an environment of men and ideas, then the attitude of the imprisoned group may take three main forms,--a feeling of revolt and revenge; an attempt to adjust all thought and action to the will of the greater group; or, finally, a determined effort at self-realization and self-development despite environing opinion.

Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others

To make here in human education that ever necessary combination of the permanent and the contingent--of the ideal and the practical in workable equilibrium--has been there, as it ever must be in every age and place, a matter of infinite experiment and frequent mistakes.

Of the Training of Black Men

From Up from Slavery See Wikipedia's entry for Booker T. Washington Two Thousand Miles for a Five-Minute Speech The Atlanta Exposition Address

Read:

• Wikipedia on John Henry
• NPR's coverage: Present at the Creation

  On the above page, click on the audio icons to hear a news story and a recording of the ballad song, as well as the lyrics to one particular recording.
  

• Read this early version of the song, and look at the four later versions that the site offers.

  On the above site, choose two versions of the song, and come to class with a one-paragraph statement that characterizes the textual differences between your chosen texts.
  

In what ways is the John Henry story a tall-tale? How is it social commentary? Is it primarily a story about technology, or about race? Is it too simplistic to say "both"?

Note, Nov 6: (An earlier version of the schedule listed a different assignment in this slot -- a paper draft. But I have pushed that assignment back to Nov 18, to make room for this pre-writing assignment.)

You can find the full text of this article via a search in the library's "Academic Search Elite" database. Bring a printout to class.

Find three peer-reviewed academic articles that present different critical approaches to the same text or author. Write a coherent essay (2-3 pages) that analyzes the arguments made by the three academic authors you chose.