1. The speaker of Bruce Snider’s “The Certainty of Numbers” proposes that numbers alone fail to account for other factors, including things like emotions, distractions, and weather conditions. Choosing another assigned literary text, analyze how it gives readers access to other factors that enable a complex, enriched, complicated, or nuanced understanding of something (a situation, an experience, a cultural norm—whatever “something” fits your example and catches your interest). As part of your analysis, you should briefly set out the ideas from Snider’s poem to create a frame, and then use that frame to analyze the other text which will be your primary focus.2. In “You Foolish Men,” Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s speaker calls out certain men for their hypocrisy concerning what they say they value in women and what they really want. Choose another assigned literary text and analyze it to argue for what Sor Juana’s speaker would say to a character in that text and why, and how this allows us insight into that other character and/or their situation or culture. As part of your analysis, you should set out the ideas from Sor Juana’s poem to create a frame, and then use that frame to analyze the other text which will be your primary focus. If relevant, you might also consider what the other character would say to Sor Juana’s speaker.3. Some of the texts we’ve read together so far engage questions of what can (and can’t) be known, how knowledge is obtained, and what individuals do when confronted with something that is puzzling. Choosing one of the assigned literary texts, explore how a character wrestles with what is knowable and/or strange, and build an argument about how questions of truth and knowledge impact their actions, choices, and/or beliefs.4. Although literary works do not typically have traditional thesis statements, many times they do make arguments. For this option, explore the question of how literary works address a social issue. Analyze the arguments they present, using a sentence or so to restate the argument and then discuss how the text(s) support them. As part of your analysis, you might consider the kind of examples they use. You might consider the angle or focus the writer chooses, and how that angle or focus works to shape aspects of the text such as message, choices in characters, theme, emphasis, etc. How do they make use of the genre of fiction, poetry, or autobiography to convey their message? What is the effect of conveying their argument through literature instead of in an editorial or position paper, for instance? Build your argument by referring to and drawing on one or two of our assigned readings as your main illustration and support.
Materials Choose from among the assigned readings by Sor Juana(poem: You foolish man) Swift(poem: Lady’s dressing room) Haywood, the creator of The Song of Ch’un-Hyang, Defoe, Equiano, Pu, and Akinari. Some prompts ask you to write about two texts; you should not write about more than two regardless of the prompt you choose. When writing about two texts, make sure that you produce a unified argument, and that you haven’t written what feels like two separate essays put together. Choose readings that you have access to, and can reread before and as you work on your essay.
This is not meant to be a research paper. However, if you find it necessary to refer to outside sources in addition to the assigned course readings, be sure to cite them appropriately. As noted on the syllabus, plagiarism–representing another’s words or ideas as your own–is subject to academic sanction and failure of the assignment. When a writer includes words (even slightly modified), ideas, or other material from any outside source, including online sources, without indicating this is happening (via quotation marks, signal phrases, and citation), this makes the information look like the writer’s own ideas and as such is plagiarism.