English 210.01 Spring 2006/S. Flores

Thesis-Seeking/Problem-Posing Exploratory Essay (1500 words, double-spaced, titled).

Draft (1000 words or more) due for peer-editing in class (bring two copies) on February 16, 2006.

Essay due in class on February 21, 2006.

The primary aim of this essay assignment is to engage with literary theory by identifying problems, developing claims and arguments, and enriching your literary understanding, interests, and commitments—this focused pursuit occurs via particular theoretical perspectives and specific interpretative practices and questions. You may choose, for example, to illustrate your intellectual quest via a literary work from texts assigned for this course (poem, short story, play); the primary emphasis and focus of your essay, however, should remain "theoretical," demonstrated by thoughtful and reflective and questioning. Unlike the explication, this assignment explicitly takes up or keeps in view one or more of the theoretical premises that underlies interpretive practice (e.g., importance of understanding the effects and function of binary and hierarchical oppositions, the problem of indeterminacy, the poststructuralist deconstruction of the "individual," the concept of unconscious activity/production of meaning, the argument that gender is culturally constructed, the value and challenges in seeking to relate a "text" to one or more "contexts," the different premises underlying an interpretation that seeks to relate parts within a text with regard to a presumed unified or coherent "whole" versus an approach that assumes any presumed "whole" has faultlines of meaning that breakdown attempts to unify its meanings, due to inevitable contradictions/conflicts, etc.) so that even as you may illustrate such issues via your hypothetical analyses and theses about a work of literature, the essay's provisional 'thesis' is likely to be about the nature of a problem of theory, or it may be about an interpretation of a literary work, and its method of exploring that thesis will reflect on the problem of interpretation itself, or of some other aspect of 'theory' that we have been considering (and/or you may want to read "ahead" in the Beginning Theory text to learn about Marxist criticism, New Historicism and cultural materialism, or postcolonial criticism and theory.

You are expected to consider the reading to date for Beginning Theory and for A Short Guide to Writing About Literature--you might think back to explore what premises and ideas seem most productive, useful, problematic to you to assemble an essay, for example, that begins to review/summarize/consolidate key notions/ideas about literature and theory. Important in all this is trying to explain why some concept or issue has significance and how that concept has to do with understanding literature, language, culture, and identity. Also please note that you should not submit an essay that you have submitted (or intend to submit) for credit (graded evaluation) in another course; as always, be careful to cite others' work that you draw upon (see, for example, p. 309 of SGWL).

THURSDAY HANDOUTS: GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR EVALUATION CRITERIA AND PEER RESPONSE WORK

GENERAL CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING CRITICAL ANALYSES                        FLORES

1.  Hypothesis/Focus/Introduction

2.  Argument/Logic/Premises/Critical method/theory/concepts

3.  Clear, Compelling, Specific Support

4.  Cohesive Development

5.  Analysis of Text’s/Topic’s Relevant Cultural/Historical Contexts; Its Rhetorical Methods, Structure

6.  Recognition of topic’s depth/complexity, including conflicts/contradictions

7.  Significance/ Conclusion

8.  Effective Sentences, Syntax, Verbs, Diction, Punctuation, Complexity

9.  Parenthetical Citation of Sources; Works Cited; Format; Spelling (ungraded but noted)

SUMMARY COMMENTS:

Questions for the Reader:

1.  Does the essay respond to, resolve, or examine the function and context (cultural, historical, literary) of some problem related to interpreting the work?  Explain.

2.  Does the essay clarify and analyze the text's rhetorical strategies, structure, purposes, and effects?  Define these.

3.  Do you understand the critical approach, method, or strategy for interpreting and analyzing the text and the writer's response to it?  Describe the main features of the writer's methods.

4.  Sum up the essay's central idea or line of argument in one sentence.

5.  Does the writer cite specific examples and quote from the text in ways that support an interpretation and develop an argument?  Which examples work best?  Which might be clarified or revised?  Is the essay cohesive and sufficiently developed? 

6.  What part or idea do you like best and why?

7.  Where do you want to know more and why?

8.  Anything else you would like to say to the writer about the essay?  If this is a "final draft," are there stylistic suggestions/questions you would like to offer