Essay 2 Assignment

The secondary readings thus far (Diamond, Limerick, Schivelbusch, Ayers, Tompkins, Kasson, Peiss, and Gould) have been by historians, cultural and literary critics, and scientists. (Later on we will add economists to the mix). You can read these pieces as a way of looking in on the work and concerns of academics - people like your instructors, whose work centers around issues of teaching, learning, and research.

Taking these readings as representative of the work of academics, write an essay directed at someone who has not read these pieces, someone who will be starting university studies at UNYP next year. Your job is to introduce an incoming first-year student to the academy, using the pieces we’ve read for this class as your guide.

You do not need to refer to all nine readings; but an adequately supported description would use more than just a few examples.

Your completed essay should be about 750 - 1250 words (about 3 - 5 pages).

Paper requirements: As described in the Course Outline.

Format: Electronic - Microsoft Word (but not .docx) or Rich Text Format (rtf).

The assignment is due by email to wbarnard@unyp.cz by 5 December 2008.

The assignment meets these course objectives:

* understand the requirements and characteristics of scholarly work;
* critically interpret and evaluate competing historical and cultural interpretations;
* critically interpret and evaluate primary sources of a variety of types/media, and with a sensitivity to historical context.
* develop coherent, sustained arguments in writing, supported with appropriate examples and placed in the context of scholarly discussions;
* articulate ideas, and respond respectfully to the ideas of others, in the context of a group discussions;
* manage self and time to successfully meet course requirements, including preparation (homework), attendance, active participation, and the timely submission assignments.

[This assignment is adapted from one in Bartholomae and Petrosky, Ways of Reading.]

Grading criteria
An “A” Paper:
This paper is exceptional. It takes some intellectual risks, and carries out its project with an impressive sophistication of thought and style. The main idea or thesis is clearly communicated. While significant and worthy of being developed, it is also limited enough to be manageable. The paper shows an awareness of some complexity in the thesis: it may discuss possible contradictions or qualifications of the thesis and their implications. The paper’s terms and keywords are clearly defined and all sources are critically examined. The structure of the paper is clear, whether it is a “logical” structure or a more “associational” organization. The paper is generally free from grammatical and spelling errors.

A “B” Paper:
This paper does more than fulfill the assignment. It carries out its project with a noticeable degree of skill and competence. It has a clearly stated thesis and organization. It touches on the complexity of the thesis and shows careful reading of the sources. All relevant terms are defined. The paragraphs are unified and relate to the thesis. It has not major distracting errors in usage or mechanics (grammar and spelling), and no major lapses in diction or organization.

A “C” Paper:
This paper acceptably fulfills the assignment, though in a routine way. There is a thesis, though it may be rather general. The complexity of the thesis may be touched upon but is not really addressed. The paper’s terms and keywords tend to show a similar generality. The paper’s concepts and thesis are clear enough, but their generality is often a way for the writer to avoid engaging the issues in any real depth. The paper may use sources and cite counter-arguments, but does not critically engage them. The paper has a structure that the reader can discern, though it may be interrupted at times by random or unclear paragraphs and sentences. There may be errors in usage or mechanics.

A “D” Paper:
This paper does not have a clearly defined and meaningful thesis, or shows a lack of engagement on the part of the writer. The paper may lack a meaningful purpose: that purpose could be so vague that the reader is unsure why the writer is writing the essay, or the purpose could be so specific that the reader is uncertain why he or she is reading the essay. The paper does not have a coherent structure, uses few or inappropriate transitions and lacks coherent paragraph structure. Specific and relevant evidence is often missing to support the paper’s assertions. There are enough mechanical errors to make it difficult for the reader to understand the writer’s point clearly and quickly. Typically, this paper will have problems such as vague diction, ambiguous phrasings, awkward sentences, undefined terms, unexamined sources, or no sources at all.

An “F” Paper:
This paper does not respond to the assignment, or has no main idea or thesis and uses no sources. There is no clearly discernable organization or structure to the paper. There is no relevant supporting evidence. The amount of mechanical errors makes it difficult to follow the sequence of ideas. A stylistically adequate paper that does not respond to the assignment is an “F” paper, as is a paper that is not turned in on time.

General feedback on the essays for Assignment #2
Most of you structured your essay around the individual readings, with a paragraph each for three or four of the readings we did, often reproducing the order in which we read them. The advantage of this is that a structure was clearly evident, and specific examples could be introduced easily. A disadvantage is that often the essays focused on summarizing each reading in turn, rather than defining the work of academics. (One sign of this is when the essays used no direct quotations from the readings, or only quoted statements to show that the author wrote about a particular topic.) The summaries were often very good, but not clearly connected to the goal of the assignment, which was to introduce someone to the “academy,” using the readings as examples of “the work and concerns of academics.” Related to this, there was a noticeable tendency to focus exclusively the field of history (even though we’ve read biologists and paleontologists in addition to historians), rather than generalizing to the work of “academics.”

Generally speaking, the more sophisticated essays were structured around points/claims, and used examples from more than one reading to illustrate the point/claim. Another characteristic of the more sophisticated essays were the use of quotations to illustrate what makes the author’s work “academic,” rather than stating of summarizing the author’s subject/topic.

In some essays, there was confusion about the distinction between primary and secondary sources. For the purposes of this class (and most classes you will take at UNYP), secondary sources are those written by academics.

The characteristics most commonly identified as marking the work of academics were, in no particular order: objectivity, comprehension of multiple points of view, awareness of the effect that points of view have on interpretation, importance of making claims and supporting them with “data” or “research,” and a focus on detail. These are all reasonable parts of a description of the work of academics.

Overall, the choices of style and tone were relatively conservative. Most essays used a standard “school essay” format (one with an introduction, followed by paragraphs that each made one point or addressed one subject, a closed with a conclusion that restates the claims in the introduction), though generally with more relaxed, less formal tone. One reason for this is clear enough – other styles and structures were less “efficient,” and required more words to do their work and make their points.

As we talked about when discussing the response paragraphs, the sentences of praise or joy (such as “all books were written by marvelous professors”) do not address the assignment.