Dead men's path plot analysis

Required texts:

X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing, 5th edition. Pearson/Longman, 2016.

10/16 “Araby” (296); “Dead Men’s Path” (187)

10/18 “Rite of Passage” (395); “Do not go gentle into that good night” (506)

11/3 “Facing It” (530)

11/6 “We Wear the Mask” (507); “Medusa” (543)

11/8 El Santo Americano (1017-1022)

11/13 “Because I could not stop for Death” (577); “Annabel Lee” (609)

11/15 “Ozymandias” (614); “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” (615)

11/20 “London” (422); “Leda and the Swan” (472)

11/22 THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY

11/24 THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY

11/27 “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” (64)

11/29 Trifles (633-645)

GRADING RUBRIC

for CLASS ESSAYS

Content: (points indicate DEDUCTIONS)

Adequate length (points are deducted fractionally, depending on how far the essay falls short of the length, before any other point deduction is even considered)

Unclear thesis statement (10 points)

Extensive plot summary (20 points)

Poor organization, focus, and/or paragraphing (10 points)

“Padding” (10 points)

Nonexistent conclusion (10 points)

Weak and/or repetitive conclusion (5 points)

Missing quotes WITH citations (10 points)

No Works Cited page (10 points)

Style: (points indicate DEDUCTIONS)

Grammar/mechanics (2 points per incident, or 10 points if consistent/rampant)

Repetition (2 points per incident, or 10 points if consistent/rampant)

Word choice (2 points per incident, or 10 points if consistent/rampant)

Spelling (2 points per incident, or 10 points if consistent/rampant)

Punctuation (1 point per incident, or 5 points if consistent or rampant)

MLA format: (according to example provided in the syllabus) first-page header, last- name pagination (at the header, or half-inch, top margin), double-spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, one-inch margins, parenthetical page citation (5 points)

HOW TO BEST USE CITED QUOTES WITHIN AN ESSAY (MLA FORMAT)

from Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit”: “Yellow Woman is my favorite because she dares to cross traditional boundaries of ordinary behavior during times of crisis in order to save the Pueblo; her power lies in her courage and in her uninhibited sexuality, which the old-time Pueblo stories celebrate again and again because fertility was so highly valued […] One day she travels far [to find fresh water], far to the east, to the plains, and she finally locates a freshwater spring. But when she reaches the pool, the water is churning violently as if something large had just gotten out of the pool. Kochininako [Yellow Woman’s name] does not want to see what huge creature had been at the pool, but just as she fills her water jar and turns to hurry away, a strong, sex man in buffalo skin leggings appears by the pool […] Able to transform himself from human to buffalo in the wink of an eye, Buffalo Man gallops away with her on his back. Kochininako falls in love with Buffalo Man, and because of this liaison, the Buffalo People agree to give their bodies to the hunters to feed the starving Pueblo. Thus Kochininako’s fearless sensuality results in the salvation of the people of her village, who are saved by the meat the Buffalo people ‘give’ to them” (540).

· As you may have noticed, I have put certain things in bold type for purposes of emphasis and discussion—so don’t use bold type in the papers you turn in!

· The bold-typed examples using brackets with ellipses ([…]) are examples of TRUNCATING, or utilizing a quoted passage in such a way that it is not necessary to literally quote all of it. In employing truncation, it is up to you to decide what parts of the essay are redundant or unnecessary for supporting your points and thesis.

· Also, a typical consequence of truncation is how certain important or clarifying information might get lost. That’s where the bold-typed examples using actual words inside of brackets come in.

· I’m also pointing out the single- or half-quote marks around the word give (‘give’). Obviously, in the original source, it looks like this: “give,” with full quote marks. However, when quoting the passage, you have to use full quote marks to identify the entire quote, so full quotes within full quotes will look strange and confusing. So turn the full quote marks around the single word, phrase, or piece of dialogue into half-quote marks.

· And remember that, when citing the page number or numbers for your quote, you simply put the number or numbers within parentheses, like this: (540). Not (page 540) or (pg. 540), but (540). And remember to put it AFTER the closing quote mark and BEFORE the period or comma.

There is also something obviously wrong with how I’ve just presented the above quote; even when truncated, it is quite long, and should therefore be BLOCK QUOTED, like this:

Yellow Woman is my favorite because she dares to cross traditional boundaries of ordinary behavior during times of crisis in order to save the Pueblo; her power lies in her courage and in her uninhibited sexuality, which the old-time Pueblo stories celebrate again and again because fertility was so highly valued […] One day she travels far [to find fresh water], far to the east, to the plains, and she finally locates a freshwater spring. But when she reaches the pool, the water is churning violently as if something large had just gotten out of the pool. Kochininako [Yellow Woman’s name] does not want to see what huge creature had been at the pool, but just as she fills her water jar and turns to hurry away, a strong, sex man in buffalo skin leggings appears by the pool […] Able to transform himself from human to buffalo in the wink of an eye, Buffalo Man gallops away with her on his back. Kochininako falls in love with Buffalo Man, and because of this liaison, the Buffalo People agree to give their bodies to the hunters to feed the starving Pueblo. Thus Kochininako’s fearless sensuality results in the salvation of the people of her village, who are saved by the meat the Buffalo people “give” to them. (540)

NOTICE:

· To block quote, you tab over twice the amount you do for simply indenting the first line of a paragraph.

· The indentation eliminates the need for the enclosing full quote marks, so the ‘give’ can become “give” again, with full quote marks surrounding it.

· The parenthetical page citation comes AFTER the period, with 2 SPACES separating them.

· The general rule for block-quoting is that the passage must result in AT LEAST 4 LINES when blocked.

· Another general rule is that the essay writer should be conservative with block quote usage, limiting him/herself to one block quote per 3 pages.

· Obviously, it is not wise to use a block quote as long as my instructive example in your own essay assignments.

To close, here are some examples of how to properly utilize a cited quote/passage, using the Silko passage from above:

· In Silko’s presentation of traditional Laguna culture, one can see a clear difference between their attitude towards female sexuality versus the attitude of the so-called more “modern" white American culture. Whereas woman’s sexuality is typically demonized in western, European culture, the “fearless sensuality” of Kochininako’s “uninhibited sexuality” (540) is celebrated and revered; it is, after all, often ultimately responsible for the salvation of the tribe and the community.

· As Silko explains: “[B]ecause of [Kochininako’s] liaison, the Buffalo people agree to give their bodies to the hunters to feed the starving Pueblo” (540).

English 102 Midterm Essay: 4 Options

Choose ONE of these four options—

OPTION 1 (Character Analysis):

Assignment: Choose THREE different characters from three different works—one short story, one poem, and one play—COVERED IN CLASS. Comparison and contrast should certainly play a part. Using CITED examples and quotes from the chosen works, analyze the character(s) keeping the following criteria (not necessarily ALL of them) in mind:

· point of view

· roundness (vs. flatness)

· dynamism (vs. stasis—i.e., dynamic vs. static)

· involvement

· the limits/biases of their perspective (mental state, physical state, gender, race, etc.)

· setting (not just place, but time/history)

· symbolism/representation

Be especially sure to keep in mind how the author goes about bringing such details/revelations about a given character STYLISTICALLY.

OPTION 2 (The Gothic and Its Influence):

What is the typical gothic subject matter? The dark. The horrible. The grotesque. The mysterious…

In a nutshell, the persistence, threat, and resurfacing of PAST sins—that is, how they are hidden (“buried”) and perpetuated in the present (which often fools itself into thinking the influence of those past sins is dead, gone, and can no longer touch them).

How does this tend to manifest itself? Perversion, insanity, murder, sadism (persecution, torture), grotesquerie.

Keep in mind that gothic works have proven to be strongly and arguably universally influential in literature and others arts; works that might be considered less obviously gothic or not gothic at all often still utilize the tropes (thematic and stylistic patterns) of the Gothic.

Assignment: Compare the style and approach of how THREE different works COVERED IN CLASS that could be considered Gothic. Make sure that ONE of the works could arguably be a less obvious example than the other

OPTION 3 (Imagery):

Refamiliarize yourself with CONNOTATION and IMAGERY (see pages 421-422, 431, 433, and 446).

Assignment: Discuss, via comparison and contrast, how WORD CHOICE and IMAGERY contribute to the common thematic goal of THREE different works—one short story, one poem, and one play—COVERED IN CLASS.

OPTION 4 (Archetypes):

Refamiliarize yourself with what an ARCHETYPE is; read it on pages 542-543 and 557 of your anthology.

Assignment: Consider an archetype discussed in class or argue for the existence of a particular new, undiscussed one of your naming. Discuss how THREE different works COVERED IN CLASS approach a similar archetype differently.

Length: 3 to 5 pages, MLA style

This is what individual anthology entries on your Works Cited page (completely separate page, with MLA-style pagination at top right) should look like: (the formula, then examples)

Last Name of Author, First and (if any) Middle Name of Author. Title of Work within

the Anthology (in quotation marks if a short story or a poem, underlined or

italicized if a play). The Full Name of the Anthology (underlined or italicized)

followed by the edition. Translator (Trans., only if the original work was not

written in English; first name first; if more than one, alphabetical by last name).

Editor (Ed., first name first; if more than one, alphabetical by last name). City

of Publication: Publishing Company, Latest Copyright Date. Pages that the

work occupies within the anthology (numbers only). Medium (“Print” or “Digital”).

(Notice how the entries are listed alphabetically according to the author's last name, and how they are reverse indented; that is, indented the opposite of how you indent a paragraph, with only the first line NOT indented.)

Works Cited

Sophocles. Oedipus the King. Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction,

Poetry, Drama, and Writing 5thed. Trans. Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald. Ed.

Dana Gioia and X.J. Kennedy. Boston: Pearson, 2016. 690-732. Print.

English 102 Final Essay:

It is the same as the Midterm Essay assignment, but you may only choose from the works COVERED IN CLASS after the Midterm Exam, and you cannot choose the same option chosen for your Midterm Essay.