Critical Essay

As you know, the due date for your critical essay is fast approaching. What follows here are the requirements for the essay and more general advice on writing short analytical/persuasive essays of this kind. Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions.

Assignment Sheet

Due: Monday, 9/30/02, at the start of class. It is your responsibility to complete your papers on time in the proper format; late papers will be accepted, but they will lose one-third of a grade for every day they are late and I will not provide comments on them.

Format: 5-7 pages (roughly 1500-2500 words), with a title and a heading that includes the course number or title, your name, and the date; word-processed; double-spaced; font Times 12 point or similar; preferably laser-printed. [Please be aware that you'll get a better grade if you first develop your ideas fully, without feeling that you have to stop at a certain page or word limit, and then go back and condense, cut, and otherwise revise so as to be as concise, clear, and persuasive as possible. Don't let the page limit limit your exploration of ideas.]

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 read the texts you're writing on and you don't have to include the kind of background that someone not taking this course would need.

Draft Policy: I'd be happy to read rough drafts on any of these options that you want to give me; please give me a draft no later than the beginning of class on W 9/25 if you want comments on it via e-mail. I will be out of town Th-Su and will be unable to comment on drafts during that time.

Rewrite Policy: I will accept rewrites of the critical response essay, so long as you get them to me within two weeks of receiving comments on your previous draft from me. Those who get their rewrites in on time can have their original grade replaced by the new grade.

Assignment Options: You have multiple options for your first critical response paper; however, the most important of them is "invent/develop your own topic." If you choose this highly recommended option, please run your topic by me, either in person or over email.

• Invent/develop your own topic.

• Analyze a popular image of (or myth about or controversy over) Columbus (or the discovery of America) in light of the perspective on him/it opened up by our readings and discussions. This can be drawn from a movie, a textbook, William Carlos William's In the American Grain, Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch, and so on. The web site Columbus and the Age of Discovery provides an impressive array of recent essays on Columbus and a good window into the controversies over the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of his "discovery" in 1992. Sample questions that can lead you to a thesis statement: how has your view of the "discovery of America" changed since reading what you've read in this course? what does it matter how Columbus is represented--what's at stake in the public stories we tell about him?

• Compare and contrast representations of native Americans in any two exploration narratives, or any two conquest narratives, or any two captivity narratives, or any two pieces of promotional/polemical literature--or choose two works from different genres to analyze. Sample questions that can lead you to a thesis statement: what rhetorical function does the image of native Americans serve? to what ends is a given representation put? can you detect any ambivalence or internal conflict within a given writer's representation of native Americans? what difference does time period or region or author's nationality or gender make in the representation of native Americans?

  Alternative: Compare and contrast a "first contact" narrative that we have read in class with some other kind of "first contact" narrative (e.g., a film that attempts to represent "first contact" between Europeans and native Americans; a science fiction story or novel or film).

  Creative Alternative: Write your own "first contact" narrative on an encounter with something new to you that challenged your assumptions, presuppositions, or world view; if you choose this option, be sure to also write an author's note in which you compare and contrast what you tried to do with your "first contact" narrative with patterns you've noticed in the exploration narratives we've read. The idea behind this option is for you to consider how to represent difference without falling into some of the traps that earlier travel narratives did. If you choose this option, you should think hard about what you want to get across to your readers, what attitude toward the experience and stance to your readers you want to take, in what light you want to present yourself and your reactions, and other issues that come out of the exploration narratives we've read.

• Consider the question of identity in any genre of early American literature that we've considered thus far this semester. Sample questions that can lead you to a thesis statement: how did fifteenth- and sixteenth-century European explorers and colonists identify themselves and maintain a sense of their 'original' identity? did their sense of identity change in reaction to their experiences and interactions in the New World, and if so, how, and what attitude toward change did they seem to have? what seem to be the consequences of positive or negative conceptions of identity transformation, or of seeing their identity as basically fixed or basically fluid? You might consider the genre of the captivity narraative in particular, and consider comparing and contrasting any two of Cabeza de Vaca, Radisson, and Rowlandson, because they feature the most extended interactions between Europeans and Native Americans among the works we've read thus far. (Champlain and de la Vega's both include captivity narratives as part of a larger, more varied narrative, so might also work well for this option.)

• In each of the genres in which we've been reading at the beginning of the semester, there's been a tension between idealistic (the spread of Christianity, "Christian charity") and materialistic (trade, resources, wealth) motivations and justifications for going to the new world and setting up "plantations" or colonies. Analyze how a given writer or writers deals with this tension. It might be fruitful to compare and contrast an English and a non-English writer, or to compare and contrast texts that lean toward opposite ends of the spectrum, or simply to focus on a single text. You might consider the promotional and polemical literature we're focusing on during the week of 9/23 as particularly appropriate for this option, or consider comparing an early explorer's narrative with a later piece of promotional or polemical writing.

• How are the readings that we've been discussing thus far relevant today? Why does it matter that we read them? Choose a text or two and make an argument to a skeptical audience about why it matters that we read and discuss them.

• Analyze the influence of a specific aspect of one or more texts that we've read thus far in the semester (representation of native Americans, description of landscape or social structure, ideals, hypocrisies, etc.) on later American literature by showing how a particular post-1800 work draws on or transforms that textual feature.

  Alternative: Analyze the influence of a fifteenth- or sixteenth- century text on a 17th- or 18th-century text, as described above.

General Requirements

1. In most of the above options, you must present an argument about or offer an interpretation of at least one of the texts we've read in class. In all of these options, you should have a central question that you are trying to answer in your essay, and you should be working to persuade your audience that your answer is plausible by offering whatever evidence seems most relevant to your argument and audience.

2. I encourage you to choose the option that you find most interesting, revise one of the options to make it more interesting, or invent/develop your own topic.

3. Because the paper length for your critical response essay is so short, compression and conciseness are key. You should try to pack as much into this small space as possible. But don't bite off more than you can chew--it should be possible for you to answer the question you choose within the page limits of the assignment. This means that you have to choose your question particularly carefully, as well as rank the evidence for your argument so that you focus on the most telling moments in the text. Finally, you must be particularly ruthless about syntax and diction--make every word count, and cut or revise any words or phrases that aren't doing important work for your argument. However, this kind of revision for conciseness should take place only after you have fully explored your ideas, the best ways of communicating them, and the best means of persuading your audience that they are true/plausible. First get your ideas down, then put them as effectively as possible, and only then revise for length, precision, and conciseness.

Advice

Note: I've numbered the paragraphs in this section to correspond to the numbering in the previous section.

1. The best way to make sure you are making an argument or offering an interpretation is to generate questions that you have about the texts we've read, choose one, and set out to answer it for yourself. This process is especially important for the "compare and contrast" options--you should use comparing and contrasting as a tool to help you generate observations, which can then lead to a question that you can then try to answer. You should choose a question that's interesting to you and that you believe you can show to be interesting to your classmates (the audience you should imagine for your essay). Moreover, you should choose a question that's truly debate-able, a question to which you can imagine several possible answers. Your job is to sort through the possibilities and convince your audience that your answer is the most plausible.

Much of this sorting process will take place before you ever sit down at a keyboard or desk to compose your paper. You should reread the text(s) you're writing on, mark significant passages, write questions or observations in the margins, take notes, brainstorm, make up lists or charts, doodle, try to produce an outline, free write--whatever "pre-writing" process works best for you at getting your interpretive juices flowing.

When you move on to the drafting and rewriting stages, remember that a key part of persuading your audience that your answer is plausible and your evidence is relevant is anticipating how they might react to your answer and evidence. By imagining possible objections or counter-examples and then either explicitly or implicitly forestalling them in the written essay, you show your audience that you are taking them seriously and that you have thought carefully about the question. It's much more persuasive to deal with a major objection or counter-example to your argument than to pretend it doesn't exist. In fact, one of the best ways to make your own thesis stronger is to try advancing a thesis that contradicts yours. Some people find this process of imagining counter-evidence and counter-arguments more helpful to do early in the pre-writing stage, others when revising their first draft. Find out what works best for you!

2. You should choose or develop a topic on which you have a number of observations that you can use to generate and provide evidence for a coherent argument or interpretation. Above all, choose something that interests you and on which you feel you have a perspective that's distinctive. Try to bring to our attention something that you've noticed about the story to which you feel that the group as a whole hasn't paid sufficient attention.

Whatever question you choose or invent, you should be able to say why it is important. The more you think about this, the more effective your introduction and conclusion will be--you will be able to answer the "so what?" or "why should I care?" or "why does this matter?" questions with which most readers approach every piece of writing.

3. You will most likely find that you need to write a first draft that is longer than the page limit in order to a) figure out precisely what your main argument is and b) figure out how best to convince your readers of the plausibility of your argument. Therefore, it is in your best interest to give yourself time to not only write that longer first draft but also to go through a serious re-vision process--to select, prioritize, reorder, condense, and cut in light of putting your ideas as clearly, concisely, precisely, and persuasively as you possibly can. The upshot of this is that you should never, ever, decide not to pursue a line of thought in writing because doing so will take you over the page length. Follow the idea where it takes you. Most experienced writers don't write their first drafts with a set blueprint in mind--they generally discover what they mean or change their minds while writing. Worry about page lengths only after you've thought through the issue in writing to your satisfaction.

One consequence of the need for conciseness is that you may find that you need to rethink the "five-paragraph" essay structure you were probably taught in high school. (You know: the kind where you have a "funnel"-style introduction in which you move from a general observation to your specific, three-part thesis statement; a body consisting of three paragraphs of "evidence" for each of the three parts of your thesis, complete with topic sentences that restate each part of the thesis and a transition into the next paragraph's topic sentence; and a "reverse-funnel"-style conclusion that restates the thesis and takes it from the specific to the general.)

Although you should definitely hang onto the key elements of the five-paragraph essay--an introduction, body, and conclusion; a main argument; some kind of topic sentences and transitions; a sense of structure; and a consideration of evidence--you should definitely avoid the "funnel" and "reverse-funnel" styles of introduction and conclusion and absolutely avoid needless repetition. Cut to the chase. Develop your own personal voice and style of analysis and persuasion. The only thing your introduction must do is "hook" your readers and make them want to read the rest of the essay (this is usually done by giving them some sense of where the rest of the essay is going or what the point of the essay is). The only thing your body must attempt is to persuade your readers of the plausibility of your answer to your central question. The only thing your conclusion can't do is restate the thesis or move from the specific back to the general. Your conclusion should "shift gears" in some way, approach your answer from another angle or discuss what follows from it. Above all, be aware of the form and structure of your own writing: think about what points you want to make in what order--about the most effective way of ordering your essay so that it helps you persuade your audience of your point's validity.