READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 2009

Don't forget to blog! This week's be due as usual by midnight, Monday, March 30, 2009.

For this week's reading assignment, please read The Book of Salt, by Monique Truong.

Important!! The 4-Page Reflective Essay Evaluating the English Major will be due in class today, and must also be submitted online via Turnitin.com!! Guidelines below:

Reflective Essay Assignment In an essay of at least four double-spaced pages (Times New Roman, 12 point), discuss your expectations of the English major and the extent to which your experience in the USD English Department has met these expectations. Your essay should address the quality of the instruction and of the advising that you have received as a student in the USD English Department. Comments on other aspects of the undergraduate English program are welcome. Students seeking secondary teaching certification in Language Arts should also comment specifically on the English major as it relates to the teacher education program.

Your essay will be evaluated based not on the views you express but rather on the extent to which your work meets the standards of the essay form. To that end, be sure to introduce and conclude your essay. Establish priorities and organize your material accordingly. Support general claims with specific evidence. Use language appropriate to a formal essay (no contractions or slang), and format your paper in MLA style.

This assignment must be submitted to Turnitin.com by 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 31, and provided as hard copy in class on that day.

Note: An essay evaluating the English major is a required assignment in all sections of Senior Capstone. Essays are collected and reviewed anonymously as part of the annual assessment of the program.

Important!! An introduction, outline, and bibliography of your final paper will be due on Tuesday, April 7, 2009. Make sure to let me know if you have questions/concerns about your final project, or have questions/concerns about any of the comments I provided on your paper topic proposals.

COURSE ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2009, AND READINGS/ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2009

Tuesday, March 17, 2009:

Important!! Don't forget that our course midterm will take place during the first hour of class on Tuesday, March 17!! The guidelines/questions were circulated in class at our last class meeting and I'm also posting them again here below.

Important!! Don't forget that your paper topic is also due in class Tuesday, March 17!! This will simply consist of a short paragraph stating your intended topic for your final paper (topic is wide open, as long as it approaches the issue of identity in one form or another), along with 3-4 possible sources that you might use/take a look at as your topic continues to take shape. At this juncture, I want a sense of what interests you and what you'd like to write about, and to get you into the research databases, at the very least, to poke around a little bit and get your feet wet in terms of possible sources. This will allow me to help you out with focusing/shaping your topic early on.

You may submit a blog post by Monday, March 16, midnight for extra credit, if you like.

No additional assigned readings for Tuesday, March 17, due to midterm and paper proposal

Midterm Exam Guidelines: Closed Book, One Hour, Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Short Answer (3-4 sentences apiece, plus examples if requested):

1. Provide a working definition of assimilation, providing at least three specific general examples of assimilation taken from culture-at-large.

2. Please provide three specific examples in which different characters struggle with and/or negotiate aspects of assimilation from the texts we have read (or viewed) thus far this semester.

3. Provide a working definition of essentialism, providing at least three specific general examples of essentialism taken from culture-at-large.

4. Please provide three specific examples in which different characters are essentialized from the texts we have read (or viewed) thus far this semester.

5. Please provide a brief explanation of the difference between race and ethnicity.

6. Please provide a brief explanation of the difference between multiculturalism and post-colonial theory.

Essay Question (Ball Park 750 Words) (I will ask you to answer one of the following, or, at the time of the exam, allow you to choose to write on one of the following):

1. Please provide an analysis/discussion of the ways in which race, class, gender, and orientation intersect and influence one another in James Baldwin's novel, Another Country.

2. Please provide an analysis/discussion of "The American Dream" in Junot Diaz's Drown

3. Please provide an analysis of the implications/significance of the missing/absent mother in Lois-Ann Yamanaka's Blu's Hanging.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009:

Please read James Welch's novel, The Heartsong of Charging Elk. (Note, this is a bit of a longer/slower read, so you'll want to start chipping away at it as early as possible.)

As time allows, please review Bhabha's "The Other Question," as I'd like to discuss some of these ideas in conjunction with Welch's novel.

Don't forget that we'll return to our normal schedule of blogging, and posts will be due on Monday, March 23, by midnight, as usual.

Finally, the syllabus draft schedule indicates that the 4-page evaluative essay on the English major experience is due March 24, but I'm pushing these deadlines back one week, and so the 4-page essay will be due instead on Tuesday, March 31, 2009.

READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2009

Please read Blu's Hanging by Lois-Ann Yamanaka.

Please also read "This Hawaii is Not for Tourists," by Jamie James. (Atlantic review/discussion of Yamanaka novel - simply click on link above.)

* * *

Outside Literary Events for Which You Can Write 500-Word Reviews for Credit:

VLP Poetry Festival Reading with Carrie Helmberger and Jim Reese - Thursday, February 26, 12:00 Noon Farber Hall

VLP Poetry Festival Reading with Liz Kay and Craig Arnold - Thursday, February 26, 4:00 p.m., Farber Hall

VLP Poetry Festival Slam with Craig Arnold - Thursday, February 26, 7:00 p.m. Coffee Shop Gallery

English Department Colloquia Series, Featuring Native Americanist and Ph.D. Student Jason Murray - Thursday, February 26, 7:00 p.m. Farber Hall

READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2008

For this week, please also read Junot Diaz's Drown.

Important! Blog posts will be due as per usual by midnight on Monday, February 23.

Important! Your first paper -- a 6-8 page personal essay on identity, is due in class in hard copy form on Tuesday, February 24, and should also be submitted to Turnitin.com before start of class on Tuesday, February 24. Guidelines for the assignment can be located in he blog/assignment posting directly below.

READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2009

Don't forget that your second round of blogging (on Baldwin, and/or Fanon, et al.) will be due by midnight on Monday, February 16.

We'll begin class on Tuesday by discussing Geeta Kothari's essay, "If You Are What You Eat . . . "

Please read James Baldwin's novel, Another Country.

Please also read the Introduction and Excerpt of Chapter 1 from Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks, linked here via Google Books.

Guidelines for 6-8 Page (1,500-2,000 Word) Identity Essay, Due February 24, 2009:

Using Kothari's essay on food as identity, and food as cultural literacy as a model/point of departure, please write a 6-8 page personal essay reflecting on your own identity/identities.

You are welcome to use food as the medium by which you think about and analyze/discuss your own sense of personal identity, but you are welcome to use other mediums to consider identity as well: religion, housing/place, apparel, you name it.

Remember that identity is not strictly limited to ethnicity, but can also be about class, orientation, ability, religion, education, vocation, place (urban vs. rural), etc.

READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2009

Don't forget that your first round of blogging will be due no later than midnight, Monday, February 2, 2009! Blog posts should be a minimum of 500 words (consider them as an informal, mini-response paper to weekly readings), and should address course readings/issues/themes, etc. Although informal in nature, you'll want to use the blog posts to clarify and articulate your thoughts about the literature and criticism we're reading and discussing to help prepare yourself for both seminar discussions and paper writing. If I don't have your blog URL yet, please make sure to send it to me ASAP.

Please also don't forget to make sure you've either signed up for a Turnitin.com account (if you're a first-time user), and/or that you've added our class.

For Tuesday, February 3, please read the following materials:

Slave Moth, by Thylias Moss.

"The Other Question," by Homi Bhabha (linked here almost in its entirety via Google Books).

"If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I," by Geeta Kothari (distributed in class via Xerox handout).

"At the Artist's Colony," by Toi Derricotte (distributed in class via Xerox handout).

The One-Legged Wonder and Other Names," by Mark Mossman. From Post-Identity, Vol. 3, No. 2, Winter 2002, pp. 31-47.

READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2009

Please make sure to go ahead and set up your course blog. Do a test post, and bring in the URL (or send to me via e-mail)for your blog.

If you do not already have one, please also make sure to set up an account with Turnitin.com. If you need to find out the Course ID # and password again (I announced it in class last Tuesday), just send me an e-mail.

Please also make sure to go ahead and purchase the required books listed on the syllabus. Don't forget that Lois-Ann Yamanaka's book, Blu's Hanging, is not available at the B&N bookstore, and so you will have to make sure and order that book from another venue/source. Let me know if you have any problems with this, and I can probably help you out. I recommend getting a jump on the readings as soon as possible!

Finally, please make sure to read the following materials for class on Tuesday, January 27:

These articles help to explicate/discuss/distinguish key terms such as multiculturalism, post-colonialism, assimilation, and essentialism.

"Postcolianlism and Multiculturalism: Between Race and Identity", by Sneja Gunew.

"Nobody Simply Vanishes: The Politics of Disappearance," by Jung Choi and John Murphy. (Circulated in class via Xerox handout).

The following article, which may be a bit more of a hard nut to crack -- so just hang tough and bear with it -- is a model of how these theories/ideas/issues are being applied and debated within scholarly literary discourse.

"Ethnic Writing/Writing Ethnicity: The Critical Conceptualization of Chicano Identity," by Dean Franco. Post-Identity, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter 1999), pp. 104-122.