Essay Assignments



Diagnostic
Essay		 Compose an essay that explains your motivation for attending college. What is your primary goal in attempting higher education? What do you hope to achieve after college and while you are here? How do you see yourself growing as a person in the next four years? Examine your motivations and suggest ways in which English might help you achieve your goals. I want your true feelings here, not those that you may think I want to hear.

Essay 1 Reaction Paper -- Select any work of art and write a critical reaction to it (see Reader's Response below) or a review of it. The work may be a piece of literature, music, visual art--anything that you like or dislike. I suggest picking a piece that you are familiar with. Use class lectures and discussions as a model for your evaluation/critique.

Essay 2 Journal Rewrite -- Select your best journal entry and convert it into an essay. The entry should address a significant issue that we have either discussed in class or one you picked out of the literature that we have addressed. Keep in mind the discussion that we had on incorporating "links" into your essay to make it something more than the traditional essay.

Essay 3 Writing about Art -- Reader's Response. Select a story, song, poem, or visual work of art that we have read and discussed in class--be sure to examine it carefully. Locate a critical article, book review, or commentary on your selected art work either in the library or online, summarize it, and discuss your reaction compared to the interpreter's. The most important part of this essay is your evaluation; be careful not to summarize the story's plot or parrot the critic's position. Be original and creative.

Essay 4 Essay four will be an in-class essay that addresses the literature and discussion topics of the semester. Essay four will be given during the University's exam week, and students have the option of using the computers or handwriting the essay. The exam will consist of ten quotations or significant passages from the literary texts the class has read since week nine (beginning with Gogol's "The Overcoat"). The students will write a paragraph for each passage discussing the significance of the passage to the story and to the overall themes discussed in class. This essay exam will be open-book.

Research Project This project may be researched entirely online (though traditional printed material may certainly be used) and will be presented on your class homepage. Select a topic that interests you and that you would like to find out more about. Begin with search engines (see Links for suggested starting points), and those will lead you to more substantive sites dealing with your topic. We are interested in several goals:
  • Presenting a unique view of your topic based on your research (What information can you add to this topic that has not already been presented on the Web?)
  • Compiling a strong list of resources and links on your topic and summarizing your findings (What information has already been presnented online about your topic?)
  • Presenting your findings in a lucid, organized manner and publishing your site on at least one Internet search engine (Why does the world need to see your site?)
We will further develop this assignment as we begin to work on it in class.




Journal Prompts


I have provided these journal prompts in an effort to get you started in writing your journal entries by suggesting various problems and concerns addressed in class readings and discussions. You do not have to answer one of these questions for your journal entry, unless I assign a particular question--otherwise, they are only suggestions. If you choose to answer one of the prompt questions--or more than one--then you should do so in essay form. One of the purposes of the journal is help you practice your organization skills in writing essays; you cannot do this if you don't practice. Please answer all questions in essay form.

A note about journals: The journal is not a diary. The latter is for recording daily events; the former is for speculating about and questioning those events. The journal should be introspective--not a list of what you did on a particular day, or new clothes you purchased, or your boyfriend's cool new Camaro. Think about things that bother you; question your beliefs; make sense of your world. The journal represents your mind; make sure there is more in it than just parties and body piercings.



Journal Entry #1
  1. What is the central concern in Toad's "Windmills" and how does it relate to the title of the song?

  2. How does the music relate to the theme(s) of the song? When does the music change and how? How does the music relate to the title?

  3. After looking over the class homepage, what are your concerns about the class? Are you looking forward to the challenge, or do you dread this class? What could be made clearer in the presentation? Do you understand all that is required of you?

  4. How do you feel about keeping a portfolio online? What are your concerns? What are the possible benefits?

  5. What is your impression of the instructor? How do you think he will compare with other English instructors that you have had in the past?

Journal Entry #2

  1. What in the world am I doing using a computer in English class?

  2. What concerns do you have about the Internet in relation to you and society?

  3. Do you have a plan for setting up your webpage? What webpages have you seen that have interested you?

  4. I have made some excellent discoveries about computers and the Internet.

Journal Entry #3

  1. What is the central concern of "Ants Marching"? How does the music relate to this theme?

  2. How does the theme of alienation figure in "Ants Marching"? Relate this theme to "The Enormous Space."

  3. What, do you think, is happening to the narrator of "The Enormous Space." Is this story "realistic"?

  4. Relate "The Enormous Space" to this quotation from Hamlet: "I could count myself a king of infinite space, where it not that I have bad dreams."

  5. Think about other ways that "Ants Marching" relates to, or does not relate to, "The Enormous Space."

  6. Marvell's poem gives what answer to Matthews and Ballard?

  7. Discuss Marvell's logic in "To His Coy Mistress." Is he convincing? Why or why not? What is the narrator's motive?

Journal Entry #4

  1. What is the central problem in "Reason"?

  2. What does the appellation "Cutie" do to our perception of QT-1?

  3. Can "Reason" be interpreted as a complex metaphorical story? If so, how?

Journal Entry #5

  1. Who do you think is more heroic: Hector or Achilles?

  2. What is a hero? Who is your hero? Do we have heroes anymore?

  3. Discuss Achilles's motivation in killing Hector.

  4. Comment on the significance of Andromache's speech at the close of the selection. For whom does she lament and why?

  5. What prevailent theme is addressed in Tennyson's "Ulysses"?

  6. Is the narrator heroic? What attitude does he seem to have?

Journal Entry #6

    Open Entry.

Journal Entry #7

  1. Can you relate at all to Akaky? How?

  2. What seems to be Akaky's "problem"? What is his solution?

  3. Who is the Very Important Person? Do you know any VIPs?

Journal Entry #8

  1. What is the significance of the title "Lady with A Lapdog"?

  2. What symbolic significance does the color gray have in the story?

  3. What theme is shared by Chekhov story and "Anna Begins"?

Journal Entry #9

  1. Discuss the significance of the one-word paragraphs throughout The Death of Ivan Ilytch.

  2. Why is this story so effective? Or, is it?

  3. How should we feel torward the survivors? Especially Praskovya (Ivan's wife) and Peter?

  4. To what extent are you like Ivan Ilytch? Can we relate to his plight at all?

Journal Entry #10

  1. After having finished two essays, I still don't understand this aspect of writing: _______________ .

  2. I'm still having these difficulties with computers: _______________ .

Journal Entry #11

Journal Entry #12

  1. Can you think of an allegorical interpretation of "I Have No Mouth"?

  2. The narrator often speculates on the nature of God in relation to AM; discuss the religious implications of AM and his relationship to God. How can this theme be related to Blade Runner?

  3. How can "I Have No Mouth" be related to Frankenstein? Blade Runner?

  4. What is the significance of the "replicants" in BR? Are they metaphorical in any way?

  5. How does BR relate to significant thems we have discussed this semester?

Journal Entry #13

  1. How are the Calvino and Garcia-Marquez stories similar? How are they different?

  2. Are these stories fantasies? How, then, do they relate to our lives?

  3. Discuss a single theme in either story.

Journal Entry #14

  1. What poem have you read that you have liked? Why?

  2. Read various poems at random. What themes do you see repeated?




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11 December 1997