Humanities Homework Help

As a way of promoting your understanding and engagement with all the reading and class lectures (Slides) included under Unit 1, write a 1-page single-space essay to summarize the material and critically analyze them and what you learned from them.  The essay must be two equal parts, 1/2 summary and 1/2 analysis. It is essential that you keep an adequate balance between these two sections. Don’t use footnotes, simply indicate page references parenthetically. Instruction- (I) Write a concise summary of the material from that unit; what was the overarching teaching? What themes do you draw out about the authors’ writings? What is at stake for them? 

(II) Provide an evaluation/critical analysis of the reading/learning and your reflections on it. What did you find helpful, provocative, useful, disturbing, difficult, incomplete, or faulty? Why? 

An evaluation such as this is not a statement such as “I liked this…” or “I didn’t like that…” but rather a thoughtful, reasoned set of judgments about what the author has said and the value of their argument. The evaluation need not be negative, but it must be substantiated – refer back to the text with parenthetical page references

How to  summarize all the material in the Unit? 

One way to do it is to think of the readings and the lectures as a whole, as a collection that is teaching you something. So, What are the recurring themes? What do they communicate as a whole?

OR, in terms of the readings, think about the thesis of each piece you read; what are the key theses statements – the new understanding the author wants you to take away?