Close Reading

Paper details Paper II For the second paper, we will be deepening your close reading skills while learning to use secondary sources. Write a 6-7 page paper that incorporates at least one outside source. You may use peer reviewed journal articles or books from academic presses to deepen your argument, but your claim should still be about the text itself. You are welcome to cite either Showalter or the article you chose for your Dracula precis, but if you do so you must include at least one additional outside source. To be successful, you should not only cite (and cite in proper MLA style!)your source, but also be able to: 1. Articulate your own argument about a text from our syllabus. 2. Distinguish your argument from the argument(s) of your source. 3. Use your source to support or further your own claims. This could mean getting information that you didn't already have (historical facts, for example), finding a theoretical vocabulary that helps you to articulate your point with more nuance (think of Showalter's concept °Tamale quest romance'), and/or using another person's argument to extend the scope of your own. While you will be using other academic sources, you are still responsible for making an argument about one of the texts on our syllabus, and using copious textual evidence and close reading from your chosen book. So for instance, This scene in Dracula proves that Victorian Women had sleeping disorders' is not an acceptable claim, even with outside support, because you're arguing something that's about Victorian women, not about Dracula. This scene in Dracula shows that Mina represents the newfound Victorian preoccupation with sleep disorders' is acceptable because its fundamentally about the text (although you would need outside sources to back up such a claim). You are encouraged to come up with your own paper topic, as long as you discuss it with me before the rough draft is due. However, you may also write about any of the following: 1) In many of the texts we've read this unit British identity seems to be under attack in some fundamental way. Pick a text and think about how that text defines national identity. What is your text's attitude towards the idea of a nation? Do the characters conform to a certain standard of citizenship or do they fall short? Are there any characters that don't conform to your text's idea of Britishness, and what is the text's attitude towards them? How does your text identify the Other? Does it make distinctions between different categories of Others, or are our only choices British or not British? 2) We've spent a great deal of time thinking about rigid borders—between countries, between genders and between identities. Pick a figure from a text that seems to exist in between two rigid borders, and develop a claim about that figure. This could be a space, a character or even an object! What does the 'in-between' tell us about the categories your text is invested in? Is the text hostile, ambivalent or welcoming to these liminal figures? Is your figure liminal in some ways but not in others? You may also write about any of the prompts from paper one (gender, frame narratives or urban space). Final draft due to before you leave for Thanksgiving break. Contact me individually to chose a due date. Please provide both a hard copy and electronic copy. Texts on which papers may be written: Hedwig and the Angry Inch r-Ir^^"In Buffy the Vampire Slaye Some things to keep in mind: ords, or in the case of the films words and images. story is told, how the author communicates meaning. address every question raised in a prompt; use the questions to help you formulate your own argument about a specific text htlps Howl english.purdue.edu/owl • Papers should be 6-7 pages in length, double-spaced in 12-point Times New Roman font Please include page numbers and a staple; and I can tell when you mess ith the margins. It's recommended that you write on only one primary to • The standard of evidence for these essays is direct citation of the text you are discussing. You must prove your interpretation of the work by tying it directly to the authors Make sure your paper is making a claim about something that happens in the text The claim should respond to the prompt but be the result of your own thinking. Avoid plot summary. You are not charged with recounting 'what happens° in these texts; assume your instructor has read the texts, too! Rather, you should explore how th • The 'prompts° on the first page are starting points for developing the central argument of your essay. Don't feel that you need to answer, account for, or even directly • Avoid re-hashing arguments from class. If you would like to build on something that has come up in class, please cite seminar directly by providing the date of the class, like so• Hamlet is a play by William Shakespeare° (Apocalypse...Soon, 9120116) Follow MLA conventions for citations and include a Works Cited page. If you would like help with MLA conventions I recommend Purdue Owl: Required Source: Dracula by Bram Stoke