Monday 26 September 2011
African American critical essay
#3: Close Reading/Textual Analysis Washington, Steed, Taylor, Morillo ENGL 234/ AASP298L, Spring 2011 Due in Section: 4/29Draft/Outline Due in Section: 4/22; Writing Prompt for Paper #3 Directions: For your third essay, you should provide a close reading and textual analysis of either Gwendolyn Brooks’ Maud Martha or Andrea Lee’s Sarah Phillips. Choose one of the topics below your paper: 1. Race has been defined in the United States through legal decisions, public policies, and private actions that have given social meaning to certain physical markers, like skin color, hair texture, and eye shape. This construction of race also appears in fictional texts. How does Maud, for example, feel excluded because of the patterns of segregation she encounters in her daily life? How does Sarah Phillips discover racial practices, and how does she react? Where in Maud Martha OR Sarah Phillips do we encounter policies or practices that represent race as a social construction? How does the text critique these constructions of race? 2. We frequently use objects as metaphors to define ourselves, our perspectives, and/or our experiences. Objects can also perform the same role in fictional texts. What, for example, do dandelions signify in the first chapter of Maud Martha? What do the grandmother’s water glasses signify in the chapter “Matthew and Martha” in Sarah Phillips? How does the author use objects in Maud Martha OR Sarah Phillips to examine race, class, gender, and/or power? What is the author trying to accomplish? If you choose more than one object, limit your discussion to no more than two items that are related and that develop your thesis. 3. We all know that spaces affect us. Spaces are also important in fictional texts. What happens, for example, in the beauty shop to implicate Maud in conventional standards of beauty? Why does Sarah retreat to the bathroom after her boyfriend’s racist comments? Can you find an example of space in Maud Martha OR Sarah Phillips that significantly impacts the protagonist or the text? How does the author use a particular space to examine race, class, gender, and/or power? What is the author trying to accomplish through the depiction of this space? Be sure to explain the function and significance of the space. Directions for developing your topic and formatting your paper: · Use evidence (i.e., words, phrases, patterns, repetitions, ironies, preoccupations, etc.) from a selected chapter to support an argument about the chapter as it relates to context of the larger work. Be thoughtful, thorough, and specific. · Devise a complete thesis statement that addresses the points “what,” “how,” “why,” and “why we should care” without being a catalogue of responses. o (What = topic, how = attention to language, theme, and form, why = the significance of the passage, why should we care = how these elements are used by the author to present a specific message to the audience.) · Your thesis should be a compelling or provocative suggestion, as opposed to a statement that is obvious upon a cursory reading of the text. Format: This paper should be a minimum of four pages and a maximum of five pages in length. Remember to include a heading and title at the top of the first page; your last name and page number on each additional page; 12-point, standard-style double-spaced font (like Times New Roman); 1-inch margins. Follow MLA format for internal citations (page numbers). No Works Cited or Bibliography is required, unless you are using an edition other than the one ordered for class or if you refer to or consult any outside source.
