In your paper for this class, you will offer analytical readings of some topic related to the class material. What do I mean by analytical reading? Foremost, your paper will be an exercise inanalyzingideas as found and supported in the texts we read during the semester(note: you are not expected to do outside research).That is, you will struggle to make sense of and explicate a particular facet of a given topic through engagement with texts. Byanalytical, I mean that above and beyond explication, you willsay somethingabout the topic. The something you say will be a product of concerted wrestling with the text and will beaboutthe text you are writing about. You might point out unacknowledged presuppositions on the authors part, the unintended consequences of a particular idea if taken to the limit. You might point out holes, inconsistencies and breakdowns in the story your selected author is trying to tell.
How does one go about writing a paper of this sort?
Choose a topic and some texts. To get started, I would recommend returning to a passage (or passages) that produced in you a strong reaction. Where a text made you surprised, or outraged, or defensive, or even desperately confused, there likely lies a nugget of a thought worth developing.You may and are encouraged tomake supplement use of texts not studied in this class.
Take some notes documenting your critical intuitions about the text. Then look back through the text to determine whether or your intuitions bear out. Allow your thinking to evolve as you reencounter the text.
Eventually, it might be before youve written a draft, it might not be until after youve written a draft, you will have something like a thesis. The thesis contains the clearest and most comprehensive declaration of the thing you want to say about the text. It is conventional but not obligatory to state your thesis in the first paragraph.
In settling on your thesis, be creative, be contentious, but be modest. Remember: in 1500 words (about 6 pages), it is possible to compellingly and coherently say something of value about a text. It is near impossible to say something of value aboutthe worldorhow things really are.
Use textual evidence to make your case. Draw passages from your text to argue your case. In presenting your evidence, dont merely transcribe these passages or describe them. Do those things, but alsopresentit. That is to say, show the reader what to see in them.
Show your work. That is, try to articulate all the steps in your thinking. Even if you dont realize it, at the point where you stumble upon the thing you want to say, you will have already done a great deal of critical thinking. Excavating and explicating these precipitating thoughts is a huge part of writing a paper like this.
Define your terms. In the course of your paper, you will find yourself using words like religion or ritual. Wordsespecially abstract onescan mean a number of different things, and the reader does not have access to your inner thoughts. In figuring out what precisely you mean by a given term, the first place to turn to is the text you are writing about.If youre writing about religion in Bellah, you should probably figure out what religion means for him. If the critical term youre using isnotcentral to the text youre writing about, then its up to you to stipulate for your reader what you mean by it. Dont offer dictionary definitions. Simply say, By religion, I refer to
Do not brush problematic evidence under the rug. When you encounter evidence that seems to create problems for your argument, take the opportunity to further refine your argument.
You may write as if your reader is familiar with the text youre writing about. Summarize only when it is necessary for theparticularstory youre trying to tell about your text.
You might try making an outline before you start writing. Or if you dont write that way, you mayonce youve got something on the pageretrofit an outline.At that point you might review each paragraph and determine what exactly it is trying to do. If and when it doesnt do it just right, tighten it.
There is no one way to write. If you find yourself enthusiastically following a rabbit of some sort down a hole, dont worry that it might be the wrong rabbit. Just keep going!
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the thing that comes out of you onto the page is only a draft. Editing and/or rewriting is an essential stage in the process.
Form and style (and grammar) count. A confused reader is a reader that wishes s/he were doing something else. To see how your paper flows, you might try reading your paper out loud.
Your paper should be something 1500 words. Longer is fine, shorter is not (the rule of thumb is that if you are within 10% of the required length you are ok).
Title your paper.
If, now or later, you feel as though you need more guidance, please ask for it.
Paper Grade Guidelines
AnApaper features original insights into a topic and the texts studied. By original, I dont mean necessarily that no one has ever thought of them beforebut only that the author arrived at the them as an organic result of a deliberative process. An A paper shares much of this deliberative process with the reader. An A paper lays out a challenging course, which it successfully navigates. That is to say, it is ambitious, but not too ambitious. Its argument will frequently be provocative, and it will likely boast a number of surprising moments in which seemingly counter-intuitive suggestions end up making a great deal of sense. Most certainly, rather than side-stepping mettlesome problems, an A paper tacks directly into them. It does not brush problematic data under the rug. An A paper is coherent in form. It is lucidly written, evenly paced, and has few errors of grammar or spelling. In sum, an A paper need not be atour de force, but the experience of reading it is a thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking. A papers are rare.
AnA-paper does most of what an A paper does. It thoughtfully engages a topic. It iswell-written, well-thought, and has few if any errors. While an A- paper is an excellent piece of work, it nonetheless suffers from a serious flaw of some sort. In scope an A- paper might overreach or not go far enough. It might have significant omissions. It might be lopsidedly pacedthat is, it might dedicate excessive energy to certain things and insufficient attention given to others. Its writing may be choppy.
AB+sets out to say something about a given topic, and successfully does so. It gets on track and it stays on track. Nonetheless, a B+ paper suffers from substantive problems. It might be excessively modest in its goals, or excessively ambitious. It might play fast and loose with the data, leave critical stones unturned, or be marred by moments of half-baked thinking or sloppy execution.
ABpaper has something to say but seems somewhat uncertain about what its saying. A B paper is often something of a Frankensteins monster, consisting of different parts that dont necessarily fit together. A B paper often makes wild claims about things beyond the text that it cant possibly substantiate. A B paper frequently has a distracting number of errors.
AB-paper reads like the draft of a paper as yet unexecuted. While not devoid of ideas and analysis, it does not pursue them with any discipline. A B- paper is half-baked, and its messy style and dubious structure usually reflect that.
Prompts
These prompts are merely here to serve as a guide. I have given you the option of writing on your own topic as the first choice.
1.Choose your own topic and set of texts.
You mustrun this by me first, but you are free to choose a topic that ismost compellingto you.
2.Identity, Religion, and America
Write an essay that explores how identity is created through religious beliefs and practices.You may focus on either immigrant Catholicism or American Islam both amongst African-Americans and Arab- or South East Asian-Americans or compare these experiences. In both cases you should address questions of how religion either challenges American identity or bolsters it and whether or not this means that religious identity comes first or second.
3.ThePublic and Private Spheres
Write an essay that explores thePrivate/Public distinction in the American understanding of religion. You should discuss either (or some combination of) the goal behind this distinction, the way it maps onto the division of gender roles in American society, and/or the contradictions within thedistinction especially as it manifests within American prisons.
4.Religion and Popular Culture
Write an essay exploring the role of religion in the construction of American popular culture. You may either focus on older forms of popular culture as discussed inAmerican Jesusor morecontemporary forms as discussed inMuslim Cool. You should discuss the way in which the role of religion either bolsters religious beliefs/practices or if the involvement of religion in popular culture undercuts the distinctiveness of that religious belief/practice/tradition.
Citation style
Again, you may use any citation style you are familiar and comfortable with. However, if there is no particular style you are familiar with, you may use Chicago Style. Examples for how these citations work (as footnotes, not in-text citations) see below.
Book
One author
(First time citing in a footnote):Michael Pollan,The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals(New York: Penguin, 2006), 99100.
(After the first citation or first in-text citation): Pollan,Omnivores Dilemma, 3.
(Bibliography): Pollan, Michael.The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin, 2006.
Two or more authors
1. Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns,The War: An Intimate History, 19411945(New York: Knopf, 2007), 52.
2. Ward and Burns,War, 5961.
Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns.The War: An Intimate History, 19411945. New York: Knopf, 2007.
For translated books
1. Gabriel Garca Mrquez,Love in the Time of Cholera, trans. Edith Grossman (London: Cape, 1988), 24255.
2. Garca Mrquez,Cholera, 33.
Garca Mrquez, Gabriel.Love in the Time of Cholera. Translated by Edith Grossman. London: Cape, 1988.
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