English 292

Hamilton Take Home Mid-term—Fall 2010—ONLY ONE QUESTION TO DO!

DUE on Tuesday, Nov. 9th - No late tests will be accepted after Tuesday. If you can’t access a printer, you can send it to me, but the best choice is to bring it to class on Tuesday. We don’t have class on Nov. 11th because it is Veteran’s Day, so it is vital that you do this work by Tuesday & continue to read Women of Sand and Myrrh-Seminar paper DUE on Tuesday, Nov. 16th

Directions: This take home test should take you about three to four hours to complete. I want you to write it as if you were responding to the question/prompt by thinking analytically about the books and then use the texts as support for a point. I will expect short supporting/illustrating quotations throughout your analysis and at most two longer, indented quotes in the response. Use MLA form of citation and documentation—I have a quick handout on this or link on our Blog. You can also paraphrase or summarize a text where appropriate if you use citations to indicate places where you are closely paraphrasing. I expect to hear your voice as a thoughtful, analytical reader. Essentially you are writing a bit longer seminar paper by responding to a prompt and focusing your answer. You should not use any electronic, reference book, critical commentary, or other outside resources to do this test. I don't expect your answer to be as fully formed as a paper that has been through the stages of the writing process. You should, however, pay attention to focus, clarity, and overall coherence of your answer. You should not have someone else proofread the final for you, but rather this should be your own writing and work. Indicate by number or copying, which prompt your are responding to in this paper.

You will write on one of the following questions but your answers should include quotations or direct illustrations from at least two of the books.— your writing should be 4-5 pages long.

1. Esi in Changes: A Love Story has a failed marriage and then she chooses to become a second wife to Ali. Olanna and Odenigbo in Half of a Yellow Sun do get married but only in the midst of war and after they have “adopted” Baby since he is the father of this baby girl. Julie decides in The Pickup to go to his home country with Abdu, but she is surprised when he insists this will mean a quick marriage before they leave her country. Formulate a thesis about women’s choices in these marriages and how this demonstrates something about societal change and its impact on an institution such as marriage. Find the thread of meaning that connects these women and analyze how they present a picture of complexity and reality in the portrayal of these women characters.

2. What is the tension that exists between being true to oneself and ones responsibility to others? [This question is the last of the reflection questions on The Pickup.] Answer this by showing how “decisions” made by several of the characters in our books show this tension and how the path may not be balanced on this continuum of individual actions and responsibility to close others. Your focus in this writing should be broad enough to use several of our books as illustration, but narrow enough to dig into the texts with solid illustrations that looks at this tension and your thinking about how it operates in the stories that we have read.

3. Identity, family and culture are closely tied in our books—and in life. Write about how several of our characters are impacted by family background, status, race, values or expectations, and how they also “move beyond” the identity that others have imposed on them or used to define them. Think about this for Kainene, Olanna, Julie, or Abdu (Ibrihim), Richard or Ugwu and analyze how they react to their family backgrounds of culture, religion, and place and make attempts to move beyond the expected role and location placed on them by that identity.

4. Our first novel was called Changes: A Love Story, and then Adichie’s book, Half of a Yellow Sun, presented two complex relationships based on love and choice in pairing Richard and Kainene and Olanna and Odenigbo. In The Pickup we see the story of Julie and her boyfriend Abdu (Ibrihim) as they meet, marry, move to his country, and as he leaves for America and she stays in his home country. Rather than focus on marriage and choices that these women and men make, focus on their “love” for each other and analyze how they are bonded and what “forms” the definition of love as it is portrayed in the novels through the characters’ lives.

5. Your choice of a burning question that will become a thesis that you have found in at least two of our books. If you make this choice, you must write the “prompt” yourself and place it at the top of your paper.

Your mid-term will be evaluated on the following criteria: Use this as a check after you write.

Evaluation Criteria for Take Home Mid-Term Writing

Your paper has a strong sense of unity and focus: your controlling

thesis/focus idea is clear:

You have established clear connections in your

writing to the deeper meaning in our books:

You support your ideas with relevant paraphrases

and brief quoted passages from your reading:

You weave those sources into the paper effectively, using smooth language

to introduce and incorporate the illustrations from our books.

You use direct quotations that support your focus and your discussion moves

beyond summarizing the plot or retelling at a surface level.

You have cited the books correctly, using MLA form of in-text citation.

Your paper has coherence, a result of strong transitions among the points

you make to support the question/focus.

Your paper reflects your effort, ability, and care with writing mechanics:

punctuation, spelling, and sentence structure: