The Fire Within Movie Essay
Throughout the course, you will be required to write six short written responses to the texts we will be reading or the films we will be watching. The purpose of this assignment is to have you grapple with our written texts before you come to class (and/or to reflect rigorously on the films). I say ‘grapple’ because they’re often very difficult to understand. Indeed, lectures will be largely devoted simply to making sense of the readings. But as an upper-level degree course, I believe you should be practicing reading and making of sense of ideas on your own as much as possible. You might also find that engaging in readings closely prior to class will make the lectures and discussions more interesting and informative.
Instructions:
1) What to write on: Each response should be only on the text or texts that we will be covering on the week that you hand it in. For example, if you write one for week 3, it can only be on Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus. Whether you’ve attended the previous classes or not, I won’t be accepting responses on previous weeks’ readings. As an exception to this rule, you may write on ‘I [Heart] Huckabees’ or ‘The Fire Within’ (which are films) after the class when it’s shown.
2) Length: Each response should be approximately 400 words and typed.
3) Title: The title of each should say which response number it is. So if you’re handing in, say, your third response during week 5, the title should look something like this: ‘Henrietta Hershberg – Response #3’. This will greatly help keep me organized (and prevent the need for you to resend all of them near the end of the term.) You may include more in the title if you like.
4) What I’m looking for: You may write the response as you like. I’m looking for:
a) evidence of having read (or watched) the material closely;
b) evidence of understanding/interpreting the text in a sensible way;
c) evidence that you actually thought about the material and did something with it
(e.g., applied it to your world; compared it to other texts or parts of texts, related it
to other ideas, interpreted a particularly difficult passage to make sense of…);
d) clear, grammatically well-formed sentences, and nice overall flow.
5) More detailed guidelines: If you want more guidelines, then I suggest something like the following:
i) The first 250 words or so should be devoted to summarizing either a whole or a significant part of the text that you choose. If it’s a long reading, it’s best to select a part you think is significant. (A 200 word summary of all of, say, Camus’ Myth of
Sisyphus would be too superficial.) Try as best as possible to explain the main ideas of
the text in your own words. Also include at least one quotation from the text
itself. This lets me know you’ve actually read it.
ii) The last 150 words or so should be dedicated to your own thoughts or feelings about the text you have just summarized. You have many options here: you may interpret the meaning of certain passages or symbols; you may analyze characters; you may agree or disagree with something and say why; you may comment on the effectiveness of a technique used by the writer; you may illustrate how certain passages reflect comments made in the introductions or in previous classes; you may link the ideas to your experiences or experiences of other people you know; you may link the ideas to other written and artistic works either from this course or elsewhere; or you may simply describe the effects the text had on you if that seems significant to you. (If you do the last option, don’t be vague and do take your description seriously.)
6) On choosing short sections: If you are approaching your written response by trying to find the easiest way out—which usually involves selecting the shortest and simplest passage to discuss—I’ll likely get that sense while reading yours, and you won’t do all that well (though you can certainly pass if this is what it’s come to). That being said, if you have good or deep thoughts about a short and simple passage, please do feel free to write on it. You could still potentially get a very high grade. I want you to select what you find interesting.
7) No introduction or conclusion: Jump right in without any introductory paragraph, and do not recap your main points in a concluding paragraph. Each is too short for these.
8) About references and secondary sources:
a) I would prefer you to use only the text we are covering in class without any secondary sources at all. Perhaps the main point of the assignment is to have you practice reading difficult material and trying to make sense of it. It’s better to tackle a small piece of the text than give me a regurgitated overview of the whole thing that you got from the internet. What I’m looking for is YOUR engagement with the text, however that turns out.
b) If you only use the text we’re covering in class, then there’s no need for you to include any bibliography or footnotes/endnotes, unless you happen to be using a different copy of the text (which is okay with me). If you are simply using the assigned text, just say what page your quotation is from in brackets in the text. If you do use another version of the text, please do indicate which one in whatever format you like. If you are using someone else’s words directly, make sure to put them in quotation marks.
c) If you really feel you need help, first send me an email with questions. If you’re really in a jam, do what you need to do online—but make sure that you fully reference your source. If you use any other source than the text and you do not indicate it, you will (assuming I figure it out) get 0/10 on that response, and you will not have the opportunity to redo that one. Please be aware that after having read over 15,000 student assignments, I have a pretty good sense of authorship (largely based on grammatical constructions). Not worth it!
d) If you are unsure about whether you might be plagiarising, I recommend watching a tutorial video, courtesy of our library: go to www.georgebrown.ca/LLC, click on ‘Study Tools’, then click on ‘Tutorials’ at the bottom of the menu on the left, then click on ‘Avoiding Plagiarism and Research Skills’. The Toronto Daily News says it’s “Hilarious! A tour de force!”
9) Handing it in: You may hand in the assignment as a hard copy or email it to me at jkoffman@georgebrown.ca. Please put your name and the written response number (i.e., how many you’ve written) in the file title . You may always see me in person outside of class to get more detailed feedback. Just come with at least two responses so I can best help you.
10) Value: Each one is worth 10% of the total marks for the course. So none of them is all that big of a deal taken individually—i.e., don’t panic if you don’t do so well at first. However, cumulatively, they are worth 60%, so they are the most significant form of evaluation overall.
Good luck, enjoy the readings if possible, and contact me if you have any questions.
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