Indiana State University



English 308: Paper 6 Spring 2018

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An Overview:

In an upper-division writing class for English majors and minors, the goals for a long documented paper must, of course, include researching a source, assessing the collected information, and producing a carefully documented, thesis-based paper that synthesizes the materials. Yet given the dual focus of this course (which includes coverage of varied critical perspectives), the scope of the work must extend beyond these “basics” to include several additional goals:

1. recognizing alternative critical perspectives;

2. getting a stronger sense of the ways that critical perspectives develop, overlap, and influence each other;

3. evaluating the effectiveness and appropriateness of critical perspectives, as applied to an individual work of literature;

4. increasing your sophistication in finding, selecting, evaluating, using, and documenting source materials; and

5. establishing your own critical perspective.

To provide you with appropriate opportunities and challenges, then, you will complete a “critical reception” or a “critical perspectives” paper: you will select a work of literature (subject to my approval) and examine the ways in which critics have responded to it, giving particular attention to the literary theories (New Criticism, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Gender-based Criticism, Feminist Criticism, Deconstruction, and others) critics have applied to your selected work.

A Primary Text:

Selecting the work of literature on which to center your work is highly important—it always is. [Of course, The Great Gatsby or a Sherlock Holmes novel is an acceptable choice.] However, as you make a selection for this paper, give special consideration to these questions:

• Has enough been written about this work? Very recent work will pose problems.

• Is it likely that critics have responded to the work from different perspectives? Some works, it’s depressing to report, have been handled from only a single perspective.

• Can you fairly assess the scholarship in the pages you have available? Seven-to-ten pages isn’t that long, so you’ll need to select a text that can be treated in that space (or consider focusing on a single element of a text with substantial critical coverage).

You can, of course, consult with me on these matters. Reminder: My office hours are from 2:00-3:00 on Tu & Th, but I’m generally available on MWF afternoons as well. Whether you intend to come during office hours or at another time, it is best to have an appointment to insure that the scheduled time is set aside for you.

Requirements:

• Length: 1,500-2,000 words, excluding works-cited pages.

• Sources: a minimum of two books [You will likely cite a single chapter from each of your selected books.] and four journal articles; this, of course, does not include the primary text you select for your study.

• Critical Perspectives: you must include in your critique discussions of at least four time periods [If you are discussing the critical reception of the work over time.] or three critical perspectives.

• Preliminary Work: work on the paper must be approved in stages; if all preliminary work is not completed satisfactorily (and on time), I will not grade the final paper.

Due Dates:

• Tuesday, April 10: Literature selection (the novel, play, story, or poem whose criticism you will review).

• Tuesday, April 17: Preliminary annotated bibliography: the tentative collection of your sources with a brief 5-8 sentence summary of each source following the instruction in the annotated bibliography handout.

• Tuesday, May 8: Final Paper Due

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So, What’s This Paper Really Like?

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Let’s use Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as our example.

A traditional paper might focus on the role that setting plays in the novel (or marriage or travel or some other feature); the paper would include selected quotations from PP (the primary source) and the works of scholars who have discussed setting (the secondary sources). In essence, this kind of paper has an idea-related thesis that is supported by textual evidence from the primary source and critical support from the secondary sources. These kinds of traditional documented papers are terrific writing opportunities, but you’ve had lots of experience doing these.

A “critical reception” or a “critical perspectives” paper asks you to read the same primary and secondary sources; however, it asks you to step back from the scholarship and assess how critics have responded (rapture, boredom, hostility) or what critical perspectives they have used (biographical, deconstruction) and how useful it proved to be. So a PP paper with a “reception” focus might trace how critics across the decades have responded to the work (loved it in the fifties, hated it in the sixties); a “critical perspectives” paper might look at biographical criticism that focuses on how the novel reflected Austen’s own experiences, while an early feminist critic might object to Austen’s implied views of marriage; your role, then, would be to assess how effectively these critics dealt with the selection (they got it wrong; they got it partly right; they got it right).

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