Dr. Yoder
Spring 2008        English 3332.01       Major British Writers II
Writing Assignments

The three formal essays all should be typed, double-spaced, with your name, course name and number, my name and the date on the first page. Number all pages after the first, preferably in the upper right hand corner. Please do not hesitate to call me or to make an appointment to discuss your paper with me.

For suggestions on style, see Tips for Writers.

Journals: 250 words weekly       Due: Beginning of class on Wednesday.       Grade Value: 15% Total

Weekly informal journals provide an opportunity for you to reflect on the class readings and discussions, respond to the readings and discussions, develop ideas for your papers, and continue our classroom conversations after class. The journals also allow me to get to know your writing so that I can provide better advice and feedback on your papers. Finally, your journals are part of the class assessment process, allowing me to assess how well you are learning what I think I am teaching. Your journals should be roughly 250 words, and should be posted to the course email listserve by 3pm on Wednesday. You should plan to read the other journals posted by your classmates. Individual journal entries are not graded, but you will receive a semester grade on the journals based on the percentage of the total that you submit. That grade is worth 15% of your final grade for the course.

Paper 1: 3-4pp.       Due: Friday, Feb. 8, 5pm       Grade Value: 20%

Choose any sonnet by Wordsworth, or any poem of 20 lines or less that we have read so far this semester for the basis of a 3-4 page paper. I am interested in your ability to construct a "reading" of the poem, the most basic element in any discussion of poetry. You should make a point about the poem that takes into account (among other things) the imagery, form or structure. For example, you might identify the dominant image in the poem and consider how that image relates to the overall theme of the poem. Or, if your poem is a Petrarchan sonnet, you might consider the relationship between the octave and the sestet -- what question or problem is introduced in the octave, and how is it answered or resolved in the sestet? Or you might discuss how a particular image pattern or metaphor works in the poem, or some combination of these issues. Be sure you have a thesis and a clear system of organization, and that you support your assertions with specific examples from the text, with proper documentation. For Tips for Writers look here; for Guidelines for Quotations, look here. Now you have no excuses.

Bibliographic Essay: 4-7pp.?        Due: Wednesday, April 2        Grade Value: 20%

The point of this assignment is to give you practice doing research in our library, and to give you an incentive to begin your final paper. THE TOPIC YOU CHOOSE FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT MAY BE USED FOR YOUR FINAL PAPER, BUT THAT IS NOT A REQUIREMENT.

Choose one of the works (or authors) from the syllabus and read 5 different essays, books, or chapters on that work. Of these 5 critical items, no more than 3 may come from the internet; the others must come from the UALR library or through Inter-Library Loan, and at least 2 of your library items must have been published since 1985. Then write a short review essay annotating those critical works.

Do not make this assignment harder than it is!
The format for this essay might look something like this:

Be sure to introduce each source with the full title and author's full name. PROPER DOCUMENTATION FORMAT IS EXPECTED.

The first step in any sort of advanced critical writing is a review of the criticism. This review is important for at least three reasons:
  1. it educates you about what others have said about the literature under discussion -- you'll know the literature better after reading what others have said;
  2. it helps you find a place to start your own discussion, because you can respond, extend, or refute what others have said -- your own discussion will then participate in the already-ongoing critical conversation;
  3. it grants you a certain authority because you are now a part of the critical community -- you have read these critics, you know what they have said, and your own discussion is informed by this larger context.

Final Paper: 7-10pp.       Due: Wednesday, May 7, 12:00 pm (noon)       Grade Value: 30%

Your final essay should represent your own analysis of the text, but it should also relate your analysis to your outside research in some way. You may choose any text from the syllabus as the basis for a paper on a topic of your own choosing. Choose something of interest to you. You may do a close reading of a poem or of a scene or character from a particular work, or you may consider issues such as imagery, structure, gender or historical context, for example. The research reflected in your essay may include secondary critical sources (articles, books), but you might also consider primary sources such as journals or letters, or related historical or theoretical resources. You may use items from your bibliographic essays, but you should NOT simply import sections of that essay into this one.


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