Urrrgh... essays...
Nov. 19th, 2006 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethOkay, so I finally got around to picking up the assignment again.
I much prefer the reading new things to the trying to make a point scoring answer out of them.
"Write a close critical analysis of two of the given extracts, from Great Expectations and Beloved, relating both form and themes to the rest of the novel and to the development of the novel as a genre."
Number of words: 1200
That's 600 per book.
How the bloody hell are we supposed to write anything useful in six hundred words?
I told the teacher I was a bit worried about the word limit, and she said so was she. Which, you know, accurate but not reassuring.
So the development bit would be realist novel compared to postmodernist novel, GE realist B postmodern. Make a list of features of each, pick out examples. Like, GE has a single narrator telling one story with clear linear time, any analepsis or ellipsis (sp?) is clearly signposted, and you always know where you are. In Beloved you very rarely know precisely who, where, when or even what you are. Which is why I like GE much much better, even without factoring in the sex with cows part. (Why should any book have a sex with cows part? I mean, eeew.)
There was something the other week about the difference between readerly and writerly texts, and how one makes the reader do half the work to decode it, and the other hands them all what they need to know to be clear on all of it. Only I can't remember which is what, just the teacher saying she always thinks it sounds backwards.
Got to display critical theoretical understanding and skills, particularly close reading. So, finding relevant sentences and poking them to see what falls out.
Use the narratology chapter and Genette's questions and apply that, because we did that in class.
Maybe use some of the other chapters from Beginning Theory, except we didn't do quite so much of any of them.
... Maybe the writer of the later book is much more aware of the isms? Liberal humanist interpretations expect universal applicability, one voice can speak for all, but later on there needs to be many voices for the many experiences. Structure and content of the books reflect that.
Whatsit... Bildungsroman? Surely haven't spelled that right... blah. Anyway, is the whole, young man grows up conquers the world sort of story. How do the two texts compare?
I think if I call 600 words 6 paragraphs and poke a different theory in each I'll... end up skimming past in a really shallow way. Bloody stupid bloody word limit.
I mean, every single chapter of the beginning theory book could be applied to each text. You'd get plenty of essay out of it every time. How much do we need to pour in to 600 words?
Assignment General Advice
"In each case consider the issue of genre/sub-genre, the patterns of narrative and handling of time, the treatment of 'character' and 'viewpoint' and any other issues you feel appropriate. You may refer to the rest of the novel, but you should try to bring out your points initially from close reading of the chosen extracts. You should use ideas from critical theory if and when they seen [sic] appropriate."
(Such confidence it invokes, to find typos in the official stuff.)
And on another bit of paper "End with a brief conclusion referring back to the first novel and suggesting ways in which they are similar or differ. This could well be to do with the different narrative methods used in the 19C Realism and in 20C Postmodernism."
So the actual compare is only the last para, but obviously easier if I focus the same questions on both extracts.
genre/sub-genre
patterns of narrative
handling of time
treatment of 'character'
and 'viewpoint'
any other issues
That's six different issues right there.
I know I have notes around on the genre thing. I think it was... GE messes with the strict realist sort of thing by going a bit gothic with the Satis House and such. And Beloved has a ghost. So they've got bits of the weird and irrational sneaking in all over.
I don't know. Would have to pick a particular extract and poke that.
I really don't like the assignment parts. Studying yaay, proving learned unyaay. Which, you know, not uncommon reactions.
I've been told not to put my essays on LJ until I get the marks back and they're all done. Because of plagiarism. Partly that the computer program to check for it may get confused, and partly because other people could read me.
That didn't occur to me before. Why would anyone cheat off *me*?
There's also the issue with taking notes and where I got ideas from and that. I, er, have done about as well as usual with keeping things taged as to who said them... I still maintain it's quite irrelevant outside of assessment, and therefore unnatural to need to keep the tags. But that would be my long words way of sulking when I forget to write down what I read. I know there was stuff from the library where I worked through the reading list without checking books out. I don't even remember all the ones I did check out. At this point I'm tempted to stick the reading list on the end as a bibliography, because I can be pretty sure on some sections I didn't read it yet, but others I... probably picked it up at some point. But then I also picked up the one next to it on the shelf, usually, so the whole thing is... complicated.
I don't know, do I put a whole semester worth of reading on the essay or just the ones I actually opened after I got the assignment? Bloody annoying either way.
... I'm going to go read another theory book. I *like* reading theory books. I know I'm going to have to hand in something in, um, 11 more days, but... well, I'll get back to it later.
600 words! Gah!
PS when the instruction book keeps on going on about how 1500 words is the xactly perfect length for an essay it doesn't help. That would be another half a book, that would. We have to put up with 1200+10%=1320 (yesno?) and that's way shorter.
I much prefer the reading new things to the trying to make a point scoring answer out of them.
"Write a close critical analysis of two of the given extracts, from Great Expectations and Beloved, relating both form and themes to the rest of the novel and to the development of the novel as a genre."
Number of words: 1200
That's 600 per book.
How the bloody hell are we supposed to write anything useful in six hundred words?
I told the teacher I was a bit worried about the word limit, and she said so was she. Which, you know, accurate but not reassuring.
So the development bit would be realist novel compared to postmodernist novel, GE realist B postmodern. Make a list of features of each, pick out examples. Like, GE has a single narrator telling one story with clear linear time, any analepsis or ellipsis (sp?) is clearly signposted, and you always know where you are. In Beloved you very rarely know precisely who, where, when or even what you are. Which is why I like GE much much better, even without factoring in the sex with cows part. (Why should any book have a sex with cows part? I mean, eeew.)
There was something the other week about the difference between readerly and writerly texts, and how one makes the reader do half the work to decode it, and the other hands them all what they need to know to be clear on all of it. Only I can't remember which is what, just the teacher saying she always thinks it sounds backwards.
Got to display critical theoretical understanding and skills, particularly close reading. So, finding relevant sentences and poking them to see what falls out.
Use the narratology chapter and Genette's questions and apply that, because we did that in class.
Maybe use some of the other chapters from Beginning Theory, except we didn't do quite so much of any of them.
... Maybe the writer of the later book is much more aware of the isms? Liberal humanist interpretations expect universal applicability, one voice can speak for all, but later on there needs to be many voices for the many experiences. Structure and content of the books reflect that.
Whatsit... Bildungsroman? Surely haven't spelled that right... blah. Anyway, is the whole, young man grows up conquers the world sort of story. How do the two texts compare?
I think if I call 600 words 6 paragraphs and poke a different theory in each I'll... end up skimming past in a really shallow way. Bloody stupid bloody word limit.
I mean, every single chapter of the beginning theory book could be applied to each text. You'd get plenty of essay out of it every time. How much do we need to pour in to 600 words?
Assignment General Advice
"In each case consider the issue of genre/sub-genre, the patterns of narrative and handling of time, the treatment of 'character' and 'viewpoint' and any other issues you feel appropriate. You may refer to the rest of the novel, but you should try to bring out your points initially from close reading of the chosen extracts. You should use ideas from critical theory if and when they seen [sic] appropriate."
(Such confidence it invokes, to find typos in the official stuff.)
And on another bit of paper "End with a brief conclusion referring back to the first novel and suggesting ways in which they are similar or differ. This could well be to do with the different narrative methods used in the 19C Realism and in 20C Postmodernism."
So the actual compare is only the last para, but obviously easier if I focus the same questions on both extracts.
genre/sub-genre
patterns of narrative
handling of time
treatment of 'character'
and 'viewpoint'
any other issues
That's six different issues right there.
I know I have notes around on the genre thing. I think it was... GE messes with the strict realist sort of thing by going a bit gothic with the Satis House and such. And Beloved has a ghost. So they've got bits of the weird and irrational sneaking in all over.
I don't know. Would have to pick a particular extract and poke that.
I really don't like the assignment parts. Studying yaay, proving learned unyaay. Which, you know, not uncommon reactions.
I've been told not to put my essays on LJ until I get the marks back and they're all done. Because of plagiarism. Partly that the computer program to check for it may get confused, and partly because other people could read me.
That didn't occur to me before. Why would anyone cheat off *me*?
There's also the issue with taking notes and where I got ideas from and that. I, er, have done about as well as usual with keeping things taged as to who said them... I still maintain it's quite irrelevant outside of assessment, and therefore unnatural to need to keep the tags. But that would be my long words way of sulking when I forget to write down what I read. I know there was stuff from the library where I worked through the reading list without checking books out. I don't even remember all the ones I did check out. At this point I'm tempted to stick the reading list on the end as a bibliography, because I can be pretty sure on some sections I didn't read it yet, but others I... probably picked it up at some point. But then I also picked up the one next to it on the shelf, usually, so the whole thing is... complicated.
I don't know, do I put a whole semester worth of reading on the essay or just the ones I actually opened after I got the assignment? Bloody annoying either way.
... I'm going to go read another theory book. I *like* reading theory books. I know I'm going to have to hand in something in, um, 11 more days, but... well, I'll get back to it later.
600 words! Gah!
PS when the instruction book keeps on going on about how 1500 words is the xactly perfect length for an essay it doesn't help. That would be another half a book, that would. We have to put up with 1200+10%=1320 (yesno?) and that's way shorter.