Critical Essay III, Fall 2005

If you've come from the critical essays overview page, you'll know what the critical essays are and what they're for. This page gives the assignment sheet for the third critical essay. Please note that if you've done the first two essays, there's no need to do this one unless you want your lowest grade dropped and want extra credit toward your preparation/participation/team work grade. You are required to do only two critical essays this semester.

Assignment Sheet

Due: Friday, December 2, 2005, at 5 pm, either in the envelope outside my office door (Fenton 240) or in my mailbox in the English Department office (Fenton 277). It is strongly recommended, however, that you turn it in before you leave campus for Thanksgiving Break, as doing so will give you more time to focus on the final project during and after the break. Note: Due to cancellation of class and office hours on W and Th, students have the option of turning in this assignment in class on M, 12/5.

Format: 4-6 pages, double spaced, with reasonable fonts, font sizes, and margins (be warned that barely getting on to the fourth sheet of paper does not a four-page paper make!); title that indicates main argument of paper; heading that includes your name, the course name or number, and the date; format, bibliography, and citations in MLA style (see the links page for explanations and examples of MLA style; the basic template is Author. "Title of Poem, or Essay, or Story." Title of Book from which It Comes. Editor of Book (if any), ed. Place of Publication: Publisher, Date of Publication. Page Numbers.); proper quotation format in body of paper: "..." (Foner 12). for quotations within a paragraph; blockquote format for quotations five lines or longer.

Criteria for Evaluation: No matter which option you choose for the critical essay, I will be grading your paper in terms of how well you make your case for your argument, how well you base your argument on textual and other analysis and interpretation, and how well-organized and well-written your paper is. Hence I will be evaluating the coherence, validity, and persuasiveness of your paper's argument, the effectiveness of your paper's structure in advancing your arguments, and the quality of your paper's prose (including grammar, syntax, and punctuation).

Audience: In general, think of your immediate audience as those who have taken and are taking this class; hence, you can assume that your readers have worked with the texts you're writing on and you don't have to include the kind of detailed background that someone not taking this course would need.

Draft/Rewrite Policy: I will not grade rewrites of the third critical essay, but I will comment on drafts if you get them to me a reasonable time before the essay is due.

Options: Here are your options for the third critical essay. In each of these options, your job is to come up with an argument that you seek to support by using textual and other evidence to persuade your readers of your position's validity.

• Reading America I: Competing Definitions of American Exceptionalism. Consider the various cases you have seen made in the readings in the course for recognizing either the Puritan legacy, the experience and symbolism of the frontier, the experience and legacy of slavery, or the experience, symbolism, and legacy of immigration as central to the meaning and identity of America. Think about which you find most persuasive, if any, and why. Then craft an essay in which you either (a) agree with the concept of American exceptionalism--the proposition that the United States is unlike most other nations--and make an argument as to what defines it, or (b) disagree with the notion of American exceptionalism and make an argument as to how even the best attempts to define it are flawed. Be sure to use works from the course that are relevant to your argument in supporting it or answering objections to it.
• Reading America II: The Other Side of the American Dream. Consider the readings we have examined that have dealt with such topics as slavery, removals, and internment. Then write an essay in which you draw a parallel between one or more of those works and a contemporary event or issue and make an argument about the significance, stakes, and contemporary relevance of that work (or works) for Americans today.
• Reading Migration I: American Dreams and Nightmares. Consider the meaning, significance, and stakes of social and spatial mobility within American society and culture and the different ways in which it is theorized in the readings in the second half of the course. Then respond to the proposition that Americans define the American dream in terms of unlimited social and spatial mobility while they define the American nightmare in terms of restrictions on social and spatial mobility--either agree and explain why, disagree and explain why, or revise and explain why your revision is a more accurate analysis of American ideologies and realities.
• Reading Migration II: Re-Visions of Forced Migrations. Consider the imaginative responses of twentieth-century writers to earlier histories of forced migrations and their legacies. Then choose one or two such works and write an essay in which you analyze how and to what ends it offers (or they offer) a re-vision of early American histories/legacies of forced migration. What is at stake in the re-vision(s) of forced migration in early America?
• Reading Migration III: Borders of Language, Culture, and Politics. Consider the ways in which linguistic, cultural, and political borders have been represented in the readings in the "Migration" unit. Then choose one or two such works and write an essay in which you analyze how and to what ends it represents (or they represent) these borders. What is at stake in the representation of borders in American literature of migration?

AMST 202: Introduction to American Studies, Fall 2005
Created: 10/26/05 11:45 am
Last modified: 12/2/05 1:30 pm
For earlier versions of this course, please go to the Fall 2004 and Fall 2003 web sites.
Webmaster: Bruce Simon, Associate Professor of English, SUNY Fredonia