| Instructor: Philip Holden, Associate Professor, English Language and Literature,
NUS |
Preparing for the In-Class Essay
In the last week of Strangers to Ourselves you will be writing an in-class essay on Mo Yan's and, if you wish, Zhang Yimou's Red Sorghum. The purpose of the essay is to test the knowledge of Red Sorghum, the issues we have covered in Unit 3 regarding its social context(s), and your ability to apply in analysis some of the terminology we have studied in Unit One or Unit Two.
You are very busy at this time of the semester, and the in-class essay provides an easy means of your giving a response which requires little preparation on your part, especially when you are simultaneously working on your own research project.
How Do I Prepare for the In-Class Essay?
1. Keep up with the reading for Unit 3, and participate in the discussions in class on various aspects of the novel's and the movie's social context.
2. Give some additional thought about how some of the terminology which we have examined in the first two units might be applied to the novel or the film. Note that you will have freedom to choose the terminology you wish to use, so that it might be best to mentally revise a few terms or theorists whose ideas you think fit the movie, rather than attempt to cover everything.
3. You will be allowed to bring the novel Red Sorghum into class for the essay. In addition, you will be able to bring a single A4 size "crib sheet". You can write as small as legibly possible on this sheet, and you might list things on the sheet such as plot details you think are important and page references for key quotes, and brief summaries of one or two theoretical positions or concepts that you may find important. Note you will have a choice of questions, and that the questions will be broad and not narrow--you will not be specifically asked about any single theorist, but invited to explore a large topic in a way which you choose.
4. You will be able to compare the movie and the novel in an essay if you choose this topic, but you will not be asked to answer by writing solely on the movie.
How Will the In-Class Essay Be Appraised?
The standards of appraisal will be similar to the other two essays. I'd emphasize:
- Quality of thought
- Ability to apply material learned in one context to another
- Clear, logical argumentative structure (with a thesis given early on)
- Support through judicious quotation and reference
The following aspects will be less important:
- General polish and finish. I'll be looking at the in-class essays rather as I would a first draft.
- Documentation and MLA Style. While you should use quotation, paraphrase and summary as evidence, you don't need to give page numbers, and you don't need to give a bibliography.
All in all, the in-class essay should not stress you out. If you've been following the discussion and reading for the last three weeks of Unit 3, all you really need to do in preparation is briefly review what you've learned there, and write out major points on your crib sheet, supplementing this with notes on a favoured concept or theorist from Unit 1 and 2. My hope is that this is a method of testing which consumes the least time for you, given the pressure of assignments due towards the end of the semester.
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