Oral Presentation and Essay 2Description: 8-10-minute oral presentation —and—

5-7-page short essaySource: A fiction text of your choosing (chosen in consultation with your instructor)Total Points: 250 (100 for the presentation; 150 for the essay)Due Date: Presentations the week of July 22-25; Essay 2 due exactly two days following in the Oncourse

Assignments section

The AssignmentYour final project for this class is in two parts. Rather than a traditional rough draft, you will be asked to present your analysis of a fictional text of your choosing in a multi-media oral presentation to the class. From there, you will use your feedback from this presentation as the basis for your revision process of your final essay for the class. Be sure to be attentive to the medium of analysis in each case: that is, a presentation should be much more explicit in its development of the analytical argument, while a longer essay might require more depth and focus!

Prompt:

Examining specific moments from your chosen text, discuss how the novel (or film, video game, series, graphic novel, etc.) represents some of the key issues that we have discussed in this class, and consider more largely how the medium of this fictional narrative impacts the representation of these issues. Some questions that you might consider include, but are not limited to:

How is gender represented in this text? That is, how do men relate to women? How do men relate to other men? How do women relate to other women?

How is social class represented in this text? In other words, how do people of similar social status interact? How do people of different status interact? How do characters of different status speak to one another?

How is race or ethnicity represented in this text? For instance, how are people of “other” racial or ethnic identities treated by the majority? How do those people of “other” racial or ethnic identity respond?

How does this text respond to its genre? If it’s meant to be a comedy, what is “funny” about it and what assumptions must we have as an audience to help us be “in on the joke”? If it’s meant to be a melodrama, what is “tragic” about it and what assumptions must we share in order to be moved?

What aspects of this text might be influenced historically by the culture that produced it? For instance, does this rely on particular ideas of power or social identity? Does this require an understanding of politics or history?

In each case, be mindful of the specific formal features of this text, and of the properties of the medium that might encourage different kinds of engagement with these representations within the narrative. For instance, analysis of a film will require attention not only to “story” but to how that story is constructed through cinematography, editing, mise-en-scene, and sound. On the other hand, a video game will require analysis of the interactive elements of the narrative’s gameplay. Finally, be sure to ask, “SO WHAT?!” Why is it significant that this fiction represents these issues in this way using these formal strategies?

English L204Introduction to FictionE2

Presentation:

1. Begin “reading” (or watching, or playing, etc.) the text you’ve chosen early so that you can meet with me or ask questions if necessary.

2. Carefully choose specific, significant passages from the text in order to avoid plot summary.3. Look for interesting patterns and ideas, themes, or other literary strategies that we have discussed

this semester.4. Rather than your entire argument for Essay 2, develop one meaty claim that you can unpack fully into

its symptomatic meaning for a clean, coherent, and complex 8-10-minute presentation (about 4 pages typed out).

5. Integrate visual aids smoothly into your analysis: bring in photocopied portions of the text or a handout with important quotations, and use a well-organized PowerPoint presentation so that your audience can follow along. Show important clips of a film or videos of gameplay in a videogame, and be sure to have these clips cued up appropriately at the beginning of the presentation.

6. PRACTICE your presentation multiple times both alone and in front of a small audience to ensure smoothness of delivery and timeliness. Please use notecards instead of simply reading a full manuscript. This is a presentation, not a paper.

7. Give your presentation and show off your smarts to the class!

Essay:

For this essay, develop a 5-7 page analysis of a fictional text of your choosing, based on (and revised from!) the presentation you delivered in class. You will write a thesis-driven, coherent, and sustained argument in which you examine this text closely in relation to some of the ideas and literary strategies we have discussed throughout the semester.While this essay is the completion of the overall argument you began in the Analytical Presentation, this essay is also the capstone of this semester. This essay demands that you demonstrate every analytical skill that we have learned throughout this semester in relation to fictional texts. In this way, it will ask you to (1) use the reading skills we started developing early on by identifying key literary/formal strategies and interesting or important passages, (2) hone your interpretive analytical skills by developing an argument about what the patterns in a fictional text implicitly mean, (3) continually probe why these implicit meanings might be culturally important at the time it was produced or the moment in which it is read in order to examine the symptomatic meaning of this text, and (4) develop this argument in clear, precise prose, structured in well-organized paragraphs that balance claims and evidence.

StrategiesAs in all of these essays, an unsuccessful Essay 2 will fall into the Roger Ebert-trap (“Thumbs up!”) or general plot summary, neither of which is analysis. You can avoid these traps by staying focused on details rather than generalizations and by using those details to speculate on the text’s broader cultural significance rather than whether it is “good” or “bad.” A successful Essay 2 will showcase your abilities as a cultural and literary critic who is able to see not just the text itself, but the cultural conditions that surround it and the cultural dialogues to which it contributes. Brush up on more specific strategies for developing this kind of argument by reviewing the “tips for success” in the Essay 1 assignment sheet!

Criteria for Evaluation

Focus: Sustained analysis of the single novel or short story, its implicit meaning, and the cultural relevance of those meanings; Clear, focused, and appropriate introduction; attention to the “how” question that guides all analysis of fictional representations

Unity: Specific, focused, complex thesis that identifies the implicit and symptomatic meaning of this text

Coherence: Coherent organization of points and a thesis that evolves, building on itself throughout the paper; clearly structured paragraphs (with topic sentences and evidence) that move in a logical order

Support: Analysis of specific details from one passage (with no plot summary outside of the introduction), and clear explanation of how those details support your argument

Critical Thinking: Clear gesture toward the larger “so what?” of this fictional text: what does it say about gender, or race, or sexuality, or age, or ethnicity, or about society more generally?

Readability: trim any fat from your prose (make every word count!), revise for clarity, and check for proper spelling and grammar