Three Critical Analyses (CA) assignments: CA#1 on a play (850-1000 words, single-spaced, titled, on either The Country Wife, or The Rover, or The Relapse, or The Way of the World); CA#2 on Roxana (1000 words); CA#3 on one of the main short narratives from Nightwalkers or Haywood's Fantomina (600 words). These assignments direct you to explore a significant issue and rhetorical strategy that you identify in relation to cultural, historical, or theoretical contexts and concerns, with some support/citation--at minimum--from instructor-specified scholarhip/critical articles. Your topic may be prompted in part by our discussions, by published scholarship/criticism (from a select/provided list), and of course by your reactions and understanding. A sharply focused analysis may contain the kernel of a hypothesis and topic that could serve as the cornerstone or shaping idea for a longer essay, such as the Term Essay. Your analysis can be quite "thesis-driven"—that is, you may find it effective to compose a thesis for your response that maps out for readers the engaging, important points that you want to develop—or you may prefer a more reflective, question and problem-posing approach.
For example, you might explain the social dimensions or importance of a particular character's desires and relations to and for another (or to others, including a group or "category" of people or to/for some concept or principle); your analysis may also speculate on the degrees of authority or power exercised or available to particular "figures" or "subjects" (characters) in the play; moreover, how are such identities or relationships represented and enacted (presented rhetorically in language and through narrative and dramatic structure and style. Or how would a director and actors embody and perform (and address the choices for performance) and communicate a particular interpretation. . . .
Your observations will need to be succinct, but I encourage you to develop and to support your ideas as clearly and as cogently as space allows, including brief citations of specific lines that illustrate your interpretation, and concise use of summary and paraphrase in support of your analysis. It may be helpful for your response to include a statement that makes a claim or presents a thesis with brief explanation and support (such as in the form of “One of this character's main concerns is that she . . . because . . . . But her desire for . . . conflicts with . . ., and she must . . . in order to . . . . The play thus represents . . . in its depiction of . . . . Moreover, it is only through X's relationship to Y that Z can be realized or established or resolved, even though . . . .” This is just a partial and overstated (!) example of a structure that might inform your reasoning and writing for this assignment--the main advice is to consider that you may find it effective to compose a thesis for your response.
Assume your audience is familiar with the play (or text), but take care to articulate clearly your understanding and interpretation of the material, especially problems or contradictions that seem difficult to resolve.
Keep in mind that your critical analysis should aim to supplement or to build upon our work; in short, don't simply repeat an argument we have already substantially discussed unless you were engaged substantially in that discussion.
Reminder: You should also consider to what extent and how a secondary piece of commentary or criticism has influenced your views and understanding (via one or more of the instructor-specified/selected articles for each play).
Some writers use the first paragraph to describe an interpretative problem that arises in a specific passage or in a character (and the relations of that character to others or to the play's cultural context), or to present a conflict of critical approaches to a topic or issue that is pertinent to or evident in the play. You also may find it useful to review/incorporate your own Discussion Starter work, and build upon others' discussion starters (but be sure to cite their work).
Initial/General Criteria for Evaluating Critical Writing/Essays:
1. Strength and clarity of (hypo)thesis/focus/introduction
2. Intellectual/conceptual strength and persuasiveness of main claim and ensuing argument/logic/premises/critical method/theory/ideas;
3. Cohesive and coherent development, logical organization, including well structured paragraphs with clear points and compelling, specific support/evidence
4. Analysis of text’s/topic’s relevant cultural/historical contexts and if specified, related scholarship/criticism; Text’s rhetorical methods, structure
5. Topic’s depth/complexity, including recognition of conflicts/contradictions
6. Significance/ conclusion
8. Effective sentences, syntax, verbs, diction, punctuation, complexity, and suitable style: academic, critical, appropriate to your understanding of the materials/subjects
9. MLA style--parenthetical citation of sources, works cited; format; spelling ungraded but noted
Questions to Guide Review of Draft of Critical Essay:
1. Does the essay clarify and advance understanding of problem/topic/method/perspective related to the “literary” text’s purposes and rhetorical strategies and to the ‘student’ writer’s interpretation and understanding of the text?
2. Can one understand the writer’s approach and strategies for introducing and developing the critical essay?
3. Sum up the essay’s central idea, hypothesis or purpose in one sentence.
4. What might a reader like best about the essay? Where might the reader want to know more or to pose a critical question?
See and review several additional resources about writing, on the course Blackboard site, and also examples of students' writing on the main course website.
Lessons on Style (general advice/quited dated handout but perhaps worth looking over) [pdf]
Quick Advice on Punctuation (also dated) [pdf]
Online Writing Center Resources (from writing essays to grammar and usage advice):
http://web.mit.edu/writing/Resources/Writers/index.html
http://writingcenter.gmu.edu/resources/handouts.html
OWL Review Guide to Using MLA Style for Citing Sources
Desired learning outcomes in the context of the Department of English and its major:
1. Students can exhibit knowledge of the aesthetic qualities of literature.
2. Students can exhibit knowledge of the cultural and historical contexts of diverse literatures in English.
3. Students can write a well-focused essay that exhibits critical thinking and effective rhetorical strategies.
4. Students exhibit standard usage in their edited work.
5. Students can conduct research in accordance with professional conventions.
6. Students can integrate their knowledge and abilities so that they attain a level of competence sufficient for productive citizenship and sustained learning.
Professor Lye's Advice on Analyzing Literature
Professor Lye's useful review-essay on Contemporary Literary Theory
UI and Department of English Policy on Plagiarism (also applies to work in this course)
Flores: Review
of Initial Concepts from Critical Terms for Literary Study
Broader Contexts and Criteria for Learning at the University:
University level learning outcomes broadly describe expected and desired consequences of learning through integrated curricular and co-curricular experiences. The outcomes become an expression of the desired attributes of an educated person and guide coherent, integrated and intentional educational experiences. They provide us with a basis for ongoing assessment to continuously improve teaching and learning.
1. Learn and integrate - Through independent learning and collaborative study, attain, use and develop knowledge in the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences, with disciplinary specialization and the ability to integrate information across disciplines.
2. Think and create - Use multiple thinking strategies to examine real-world issues, explore creative avenues of expression, solve problems and make consequential decisions.
3. Communicate – Acquire, articulate, create and convey intended meaning using verbal and non-verbal methods of communication that demonstrate respect and understanding in a complex society.
4. Clarify purpose and perspective – Explore one's life purpose and meaning through transformational experiences that foster an understanding of self, relationships and diverse global perspectives.
5. Practice citizenship – Apply principles of ethical leadership, collaborative engagement, socially responsible behavior, respect for diversity in an interdependent world and a service-oriented commitment to advance and sustain local and global communities.
–University-Level Outcomes Affirmed by UI Faculty Council, October 3, 2006