Seminar Papers Assignments for Unit 4 (Analysis)

English 101

Seminar Paper #9: “Joyas Voladores,” by Brian Doyle, Due Monday 2/27

Seminar Paper #10: “The Ugly Tourist,” by Jamaica Kincaid, Due Tuesday 2/28

VERY IMPORTANT! Read “About Seminar Papers” (paper handout or on our class website) for more that you need to know about seminar papers—format, length, quotation requirements, required research, and additional reading, grading, etc.

All essays are in 50 Essays, 4th Edition, edited by Samuel Cohen. In the book, the essays are organized alphabetically by the last name of the author.

All seminar papers are due on paper at the beginning of class on the due date.

Review late policies in the syllabus.

Quotation Requirements

Each seminar paper must include the three following kinds of quotations:

Introduced by a short signal phrase plus a comma.
Introduced by a full idea-containing sentence of your own plus a colon.
Blended into your own sentence—for quoting short phrases and individual words.

Do not include any quotations longer than four typed lines (your typing, your lines) of text. Use ellipses or careful choices about how to quote so as to avoid these long quotations.

Seminar Paper #9 Due Monday, 2/27

“Joyas Voladores,” by Brian Doyle

1.For class discussion, prepare a question about the reading. This should not be a fact-based question or a yes or no question, not a question for which the answer can be easily looked up (you should already have looked up the answers to these kinds of questions). This should be a question about what the author means and says. For example, you can introduce a particularly mysterious or complex part of the text and ask how it might be interpreted. You could observe something about the author’s writing style and ask how it affects the reader. You could call attention to a part of the text that stands out to you and ask why it stands out and how it connects to the meaning of the essay as a whole.

2.Write a few sentences or a paragraph giving your own answer to the question you asked in #1. This can be a speculative sort of answer—you might not fully have a clear or “correct” answer to the question, but you are exploring possibilities as you write. In fact, there probably is no single correct answer to the question, if it’s a good question.

3.a. Using Google Images, look up pictures of two (or more) of the hummingbird species named in the long paragraph at the top of page 126. In your own words, describe what each of these two birds looks like.

b. Does looking at the pictures and thinking about these birds help you understand why Doyle included this list, or add to your understanding of the essay as a whole? Explain.

4.Fill in the blanks of the following sentence template to write the essay’s main idea, or thesis.

In this essay about __(the literal topic of the essay)____, the writer says __(the idea that the writer conveys about this literal topic)__.

Both parts of this template should be in your own words. They should not be quotations from the essay.

5.Introduce an example from the text and briefly explain how it addresses or is part of or contributes to the main idea you’ve written for #4 above.

6.Ideas for your own writing: What are some of the things that Doyle does in his writing that you now might want to use in your own writing? In other words, what writing techniques might you now want to use? Introduce quotations to point out these elements, and explain how or why you might want to use them.

Seminar Paper #10 Due Tuesday, 2/28

“The Ugly Tourist,” by Jamaica Kincaid

1.For class discussion, prepare a question about the reading. This should not be a fact-based question or a yes or no question, not a question for which the answer can be easily looked up (you should already have looked up the answers to these kinds of questions). This should be a question about what the author means and says. For example, you can introduce a particularly mysterious or complex part of the text (using a quotation!) and ask how it might be interpreted. You could observe something about the author’s writing style and ask how it affects the reader. You could call attention to a part of the text (using a quotation!) that stands out to you and ask why it stands out and how it connects to the meaning of the essay as a whole.

3.Background information: From the header preceding “The Ugly Tourist” in 50 Essays, and from online biographies such as those in Wikipedia or Brittanica, do you learn anything about what qualifies Jamaica Kincaid to write this essay? Does she have the credibility or expertise to discuss these topics? Why or why not? As before, when bringing in information from outside sources (not 50 Essays), use a short signal phrase followed by a paraphrase of the source information, like this: “According to the online Brittanica entry on Kincaid, she is from Antigua but has lived in Vermont for a long time.”

4.There are many things about Kincaid’s writing in this essay that may strike you as weird or difficult, or give you a response like “What? Can you really do this in writing?” Point out one of these strange elements of the writing, and discuss what effects you think it has on the essay. What meaning does this feature of the writing express? Why might Kincaid have chosen to write this way?

5.Fill in the blanks of the following sentence template to write the essay’s main idea, or thesis.

In this essay about __(the literal topic of the essay)____, the writer says __(the idea that the writer conveys about this literal topic)__.

Both parts of this template should be in your own words. They should not be quotations from the essay.

6.Ideas for your own writing: In addition to what you noticed in #4 above, what are some of the things that Kincaid does in her writing that you now might want to do in your own writing? Introduce quotations to point out these elements, and explain how or why you might want to use them.