ENGL 301 (Section 001, Schedule #31836)
Virginia Commonwealth University
Spring 2017
MWF 2-2:50pm :: Hibbs 207
Prof. David Golumbia
Office: 324D Hibbs Hall
Spr 2017 Office Hours: MW 1:30-2, 2:50-4pm

Introduction to the English Major

PAPER ASSIGNMENT 2

Write a 5-6 page (1500 words) paper on one of the following topics. Your paper should stick closely to the text of the work you are analyzing. Your paper should develop an analytical argument about the work and have a clear statement of your thesis, and you should use quotations from the book to provide evidence for your analysis.

1. Both Jane Eyre and Their Eyes Were Watching God are novels that focus on one woman named Jane, and the happiness she does or does not achieve in part through her relationships with men. Is Their Eyes Were Watching God a retelling of Jane Eyre? Construct an argument about why it might be and what it would mean for your reading of the novel if it were.
2. Is Janie happy at the end of Their Eyes Were Watching God? Why or why not?
3. How does the "song" of Solomon in the novel by that name, especially as it is explained toward the end of the book, relate to the Biblical Song of Solomon?
4. Is Milkman a tragic or comic character in Song of Solomon?
5. Song of Solomon, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Wide Sargasso Sea can all be understood as novels that attempt to interpret the lived experience of African-Americans (or Afro-Caribbeans, in the case of Wide Sargasso Sea) within a work of fiction. What kinds of statements do one or more of these works make about that experience? What might that say about the function of literature as a means of interpreting the world, especially in its political aspects?
   
6. Open Topic. You may write on any topic that you find interesting in the books we've read (or will read) in this class. However, you need to get your topic approved by me (either in email or in person) prior to writing the paper.
   

Submission of Assignments

Please submit your assignment in the "Paper 2 " selection under Assignments in Blackboard.

General Paper Instructions

The essay should be 5 to 6 pages in length, but please use your word processor to count the number of words; word count and not page length is the official metric for the assignment. An English paper should include quotations from the work you are analyzing, and short quotations DO count toward the total word count for the essay. Long quotations (of 50 or more words) should not generally be counted toward the 1500 word total for the assignment.

This is not a research paper, and you are not expected to consult outside sources except for the primary book or piece of media you choose to interpret. Any sources, including that primary source, should be properly cited in your paper, using any acceptable bibliographic citation format. One very simple format is to use a list of Works Cited at the end of the paper, and indicate by author, work and page number in parentheses the exact quotations within the paper itself. Refer to assignment 1 for information on some correct ways to cite material for the paper.

This is not primarily a research paper, and you do not need to consult outside sources except for the primary book or piece of media you choose to interpret. However, you are also very welcome to include secondary and primary sources of any kind that relate to the assignment and the course material. Any sources, including that primary source, should be properly cited in your paper, using any acceptable bibliographic citation format. One very simple format is to use a list of Works Cited at the end of the paper, and indicate by author, work and page number in parentheses the exact quotations within the paper itself.

For convenience, here are some citations from readings for another course. For works other than movies, articles, or books, just do your best: the point is to indicate where you got material that is not written by you; I am less concerned with the exact form your citation takes than I am with the attempt to provide a citation. This includes Wikipedia entries, one of which is included below.

Within the paper, you would cite things this way:

One critic says that "surveillance is always at work, whether we know it or not" (Andrejevic, "The Work of Watching One Another," p. 34).

A Wikipedia entry might be cited like this:

Morrison "went to Howard University graduating in 1953 with a B.A. in English; she went on to earn a Master of Arts from Cornell University in 1955" ("Toni Morrison," Wikipedia).

Works Cited

Mark Andrejevic, "The Work of Watching One Another: Lateral Surveillance, Risk, and Governance." Surveillance & Society 2:4 (2004). 479-497.
Julia Angwin, "It's Complicated: Facebook's History of Tracking You." ProPublica (Jun 17, 2014). http://www.propublica.org/article/its-complicated-facebooks-history-of-tracking-you.
Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, "The Californian Ideology." Mute 3 (Autumn 1995).
Adam Curtis, dir. All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace. Three Parts. United Kingdom: BBC, 2011.
"Toni Morrison." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison. Accessed Feb 2, 2016.

Other standard forms of citation (such as footnotes) are also acceptable, but failing to properly indicate sources technically constitutes plagiarism.

Last updated March 24, 2017.