ENGL 481 Is Writing a Fad?
ENGL 481 Is Writing a Fad?

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Assignments

Assignment Due Date Value
Participation Cards Daily 20%
Paper 1 Pre-work: Annotated Bibliography 02.28.2019 10%
Paper 1: Periodizing Writing 03.19.2019 03.24.2019 25% 30%
Paper 2 Pre-work: Thesis + Outline 04.26.2019 10% 15%
Paper 2: Research Paper 05.03.2019 35%

Participation Cards

Starting the second week of class, you will be required to bring a 3”x5” notecard to class each day. These cards will serve to record your attendance in class. More importantly, they will structure class participation.

There are three required elements on a participation card for it to count as attendance:

  1. Your name (top of card)
  2. A passage that stuck with you from the reading (front of card)
  3. An unanswered question based on class discussion (back of card)

At the beginning of each class, I will give you two minutes to write out one sentence from the reading that stuck with you: that you loved, that you hated, or that confused you (you may also bring a prepared card, if you like). We will begin class discussion by going around the room and reading our passages. This activity will serve to spark our discussion of the reading.

At the end of each class, I will give you three minutes to write out (in complete sentences) an answer to the following: “What topic did we raise today that is going to keep you up tonight? If nothing, what should we have asked that would keep you thinking into the night?” This is your chance to show me what you learned in discussion, what you wished you had learned, and/or what you still want to learn. I will be using these to help shape future discussions.

If you cannot attend class, please email the quote you would have put on your card and a 2-3 sentence explanation for why you chose the quote in question.

Paper 1 – Periodizing Writing

For our first paper, you will produce a research paper investigating the issues surrounding writing in a particular period or area (defined how you see fit but subject to my approval). Periods would need to correspond to the times and geographies we use to divide up the English major:

British Periods

  • Medieval British
  • Early Modern British
  • 18th Century
  • British Romanticism
  • Victorian
  • Modern British
  • Contemporary British

American Periods

  • Early American
  • 19th Century American
  • Modern American
  • Postmodern American
  • Contemporary American

Further, you can focus your research onto a particular topic or area, say “Early Modern Drama” or “Harlem Renaissance Modern American” or “American Science Fiction.” If you choose a particular topic, please make sure to briefly ask me after class, in office hours, or via email for approval.

Having selected your period, you will need to do extensive research to be able to articulate what interesting is happening in terms of writing during this period. Not only will you be articulating how writers in your period thought about themselves but also how contemporary critics account for authorship discussions. Additionally, you will want to document and account for any major writing or publishing technologies that emerge during your period. For instance, if you wrote about Medieval British authorship, you might need to account for the rise of monastic scribal culture. A paper on American Science Fiction would want to discuss magazine publication.

There is more than enough information on authorship during any of these periods to fill a paper of this length, so you will also have to exercise some critical judgement in order to focus on the most important or most interesting narrative to structure your paper. This paper will challenge not only your curatorial instincts but also ask you to work on finding sources, reading sources, summarizing with appropriate detail, and, finally, synthesizing information into a cohesive whole. While driven by others’ insight, this paper will still need to be argumentative: you are assembling existing scholarship into your own story about authorship during the period you choose.

Pre-Work: Annotated Bibliography

To prepare for this assignment, I ask that you produce an annotated bibliography. An annotated bibliography gives the source as an MLA works cited entry, followed by a short paragraph summarizing the argument of the source. Sources should be alphabetized. Summary paragraphs should be focused on summarizing the relevance to your paper.

You will need to produce ten annotated entries for this bibliography. Please consider using [Zotero](https://www.zotero.org/) or [EasyBib](http://www.easybib.com/) to generate your citations. I am less interested in grading this on correctness of citations than I am on seeing that you have found useful and scholarly citations and that you have generated thoughtful summaries.

Paper 2 – Research Paper

For this assignment, you will write an 8-10 page, argumentative essay exploring some aspect of the course texts. You may use outside research, your own interests, or other texts you have read (novels, etc). Your topic is up to you but should in some way respond to the topic we have been exploring this semester.

We will talk in class about developing a thesis and how to turn an idea or interest into an argument. Additionally, this assignment will ask you to build on the skills in research and summarization we developed in the first assignment.

Pre-Work: Thesis and Detailed Outline

In advance of writing your final paper, I ask you submit a thesis statement that meets the requirements we discuss in class. Additionally, I ask you to submit a sample bibliography and a detailed, point-by-point outline of your final paper.