English homework help

Midterm/ 25 percent of final grade (25 points)

Word count is not specified for this assignment

 

Part I – Short answer (10 points / 2 points each)

 

The following prompts are written for short answer questions. Please write concise (7+ sentences) answers to each. Stronger entries are those that incorporate direct ideas from our readings, lectures, and online discussions. Synthesizing or paraphrasing from the course content is encouraged. Be detailed with your source material, but citations are not necessary. Please choose only five prompts to answer (omit one you do not feel you can answer as strongly). I will read only five responses so mark through any answers you do not wish for me to grade. Finally, please double-space all of your entries.

 

1. Provide a sentence length definition of the key term “identity.” Following, include justification for your personal definition by incorporating at least two literary theories and/or readings from class to further illustrate your position.

2. What is the difference between sex and gender as described by textbook author Rob Pope (Studying Literature and Language)? Why is this distinction important to the theoretical fields of queer theory and feminism?

3. What theories does Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw use in her essay to acknowledge gaps in the scholarly conversation? Briefly describe the purpose of Crenshaw’s basement metaphor.

4. Write a sentence length definition of the key term “intertextuality.” To follow, include justification for your definition by providing a literary example of the term.

5. How does Rob Pope distinguish feminist theory from other literary theories? Use Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (specifically, her use of psychoanalysis) to further illustrate the ultimate goal(s) of feminist theory.

6. In what ways has engaging with literature changed significantly in the past decade according to the “Prelude: Changing English Now” in Studying Literature and Language?

7. In what ways does our textbook, Writing Essays About Literature characterize the writing process for English majors? (Hint: how is writing a literature research paper different from writing any other type of college research essay according to Katherine O. Acheson?)

 

 

 

Part II – Essay (15 points)

 

Please answer the following prompt to craft your midterm essay. Consider that I will be grading you based on your mastery of course material thus far in the semester. Strong answers will consult at least three readings from this semester in your essay, as well as discussions/lectures/literary theories. Please be clear and detailed about the material you are paraphrasing; No Works Cited needed due to time constraints. Organize the essay with a clear introduction and conclusion and please double-space your writing (approximately 20+ sentences).

 

A. Throughout the semester, we have been pursuing the question of how texts and languages work in different multicultural communities in terms of race, interpretive strategies, gender, sexuality, class, etc. How might studying literature and language help you understand the experiences of others?

 

The following quotes are resources for you to use to craft your Midterm essay (but are not required to use):

 

“He was on his own, an individual pulling on his bootstraps, looking out for number one. He’s not proud of the sensibility, but isolation — and, likely, exploitation of others — are the stuff of racelessness” (Villanueva 123).

 

“Writing is a way of discovering, of learning, of thinking” (Villanueva 125).

 

“The term ‘intersectionality’ gained traction due to the advent of the blogosphere and web-based activism but, at bedrock, because of its usefulness for succinctly naming structural and systemic inequality. The theory of intersectionality provides a lens through which to understand how identities operate in the U.S.” (Lisa B. Thompson, Lecture #2, pp. 103).

 

“Yet often they experience double-discrimination—the combined effects of practices which discriminate on the basis of race, and on the basis of sex. And sometimes, they experience discrimination as Black women—not the sum of race and sex discrimination, but as Black women” (Crenshaw 149).

 

“The cinema satisfies a primordial wish for pleasure looking, but it also goes further, developing scopophilia in its narcissistic aspect. The conventions of mainstream film focus attention on the human form” (Mulvey 60).

 

“Enjoy—because literature and language and culture are also about pleasure, playing, celebrating, exploring, experimenting, imagining” (Pope 62).

 

“I’m Nobody! Who are you? / Are you—Nobody—too? / Then there’s a pair of us?” (Emily Dickinson, “I’m Nobody”).

 

“Into the living sea of waking dreams, / Where there is neither sense of life or joys, / But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems” (John Clare, “I am”).

 

“The reasons we study literature—the reasons we write essays about literature—are to try and understand better what it gives us, how it reflects, enlarges, and critiques what it is to be human in this world, or these worlds, of ours” (Acheson 5).