Return to syllabus Engl 272
Response Papers
The use of quotes is mandatory in response papers. Response papers will use nothing other than primary documentation, according to MLA format. That is to say that the only quotes or paraphrases in the paper need to come from the text to which the paper responds. If a student so chooses, he or she may use secondary (critical) sources, but such action is not mandatory. The response paper should show a sincere and thoughtful engagement with the material covered in class. Students may choose from suggested topics or create one of their own. If a student decides to craft a topic, he or she must submit the topic to me for approval.
Evaluation criteria for response papers:
- Papers will be graded on the quality of ideas and the sophistication of thought. Unless grammar or style problems are so severe as to impede my understanding of the ideas in the paper, no paper will lose points for mechanics.
- Proper documentation of sources is expected.
- Papers should refrain from making statements that are too general and that tell without showing. Clear examples and detailed explanations make for strong papers.
- Papers ought to remain focused on the topic. Because these papers are short, attempting to cover too much ground will result in a general and possibly empty paper.
- Paragraphs should be strong and well crafted. They should be ten to twelve sentences in length and provide explanation that ties back to the main idea of the paper, reserving examples (quotes, plot summary, and paraphrase) for the middle of the paragraph. The students’ main ideas should come first.
- No body paragraph should begin with a quote. All quotes must be situated within a sentence of the student's own making. No quote should stand alone as if to speak for itself.
Topics for response paper #1:
1. Identify the elements of Realism and discuss their use in one of the assigned stories.
2. What sort of elements do the African American folktales have that make them a part of an "oral tradition," even though our exposure to them is in a written form?
3. What do Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Glaspell’s Trifles suggest about the lives of women in the twentieth century? Be sure to address how the approach to the issue of gender is handled in terms of form (especially, plot development and character development).
4. Retrace the essays by Howells and James, and discern the criteria by which they judge literature. Use their ideas to guide a reading of a text covered in this class to see how they would "measure up." Would the reading be a part of their realist canon? Why? Why not? (Choose one reading or one group of similar selected readings.)
Topics for response paper #2:
1. Discuss Eliot, Stein, or Williams in terms of the modernist experiment. Be sure to include the elements of modernist techniques and examples from the text.
2. Analyze one or more poems by Langston Hughes in light of the essay by Alain Locke on "The New Negro," and explain how the poem(s) reflect the changes documented in Locke's essay.
3. Discuss modernist experimentation in terms of its relationship to the realists and naturalists, who dominated the latter portion of the nineteenth century.
4. Select a text that lends itself to an analysis of race based on the debate between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois. Remember that Washington ascribed to the "bootstrap" philosophy of independence and free will while DuBois’s notion of "double consciousness" allowed for a critique of U.S. culture.
