REVISION OPTION

Dear students,

I have decided to give you the option to revise 1 of your essays from the semester in order to improve your score by as much as one whole letter grade.

You may revise either essays 1, 2, or 3 for this assignment. If you choose to revise your in-class essay, your revision must be typed and follow MLA formatting.

For revision, please improve your essay with my suggestions on the paper. In addition, I recommend meeting with me during my office hours to go over the essay.

These revisions will be due on the very last day of class before finals week, via email only. You will receive ONLY a graded letter on them, no notes, as I have already made extensive notes on both your rough drafts/outlines and your final drafts, and I will be busy grading your final projects as well during finals week.

You're welcome! :-)

Hi everyone,

Please note that the Course Schedule has been updated to reflect a slight change to the reading and a change to the due date of your In-Class Essay.

We can discuss any questions you have about this in class, or you can email me. In addition, you will be receiving your grades on Essay #1 before Tuesday's class and may send any questions about these grades via email. Thanks.

Prof D

Discussion Questions

What makes the vampires in the novel human? What makes them not-human? Define human.

Discuss Louis' quest vs. Claudia's quest. What are they both looking for? How do these quests match up with the time period in which the novel was written, its questions and its qualities?

What happens when Louis and Claudia go back to the old country to find "Dracula"? Who do they find there? 

If you were to create a vampire to represent current cultural fears and desires, what fears and desires would those be? How would your vampire represent them?

The In Class Essay

The In-Class Essay:

Aim and Organization

AIM:

To successfully prove a clear, specific thesis. The thesis should, obviously, address one of the prompts given in class. Following directions here, as always, is crucial to receiving a passing grade.

ORGANIZATION:

An in-class essay is organized into five paragraphs. The first paragraph is the introduction, then comes three body paragraphs, then a concluding paragraph. No more—no less!

You will want to make a brief outline before you write your essay.* Make sure the body paragraphs appear in a logical order, not simply the order they came to your mind in. Build on the information as you go.

Introductory Paragraph: Make sure not to take too much time writing in introduction. This paragraph should be about five sentences long (give or take a sentence or two). Provide a clearly arguable, well-qualified, thesis.

Body Paragraph One: Don’t forget to provide clear examples to back up your argument, as well as a topic sentence at the beginning of the paragraph.

Body Paragraph Two: Don’t forget to provide clear examples to back up your argument, as well as a topic sentence at the beginning of the paragraph. And remember, Body Paragraph Two should follow Body Paragraph One in terms of building logically upon it.

Body Paragraph Three: Don’t forget to provide clear examples to back up your argument, as well a topic sentence as the beginning of the paragraph. And remember, Body Paragraph Three should follow Body Paragraph Two in terms of building logically upon it.

Concluding Paragraph: Re-state your thesis. Summarize what has been successfully argued in the essay. End with a thoughtful and strong statement. This paragraph, like your introductory paragraph, need not be longer than five sentences, but should also not be shorter.

Grammar and formatting: Make sure to check your grammar and spelling as you go along. There is a bit more room for error in an in-class essay, but your essay must be readable and legible (so make sure your handwriting is clear). Double-check your essay for errors before you turn it in. You may choose to double-space or single space an in-class essay (depending on what your teacher requests).

*You will be required to turn in your brief outline with your essay for your INTD100. See “Sample Outline” below for details.

SAMPLE OUTLINE FOR IN-CLASS ESSAY

Par. 1: THESIS: Write out thesis statement here.

Par. 2: TOPIC SENTENCE/MAIN IDEA: Write out topic sentence/main idea for Paragraph 1 here.

Par. 3: TOPIC SENTENCE/MAIN IDEA: Write out topic sentence/main idea for Paragraph 2 here.

Par. 4: TOPIC SENTENCE/MAIN IDEA: Write out topic sentence/main idea for Paragraph 3 here.

Par. 5: CONCLUSION: Final thought to leave reader with.

*Remember, this is just a sample outline—yours can differ slightly. Also, you obviously will want to fully develop your intro, body paragraphs, and conclusion—so while you are providing the main idea of these paragraphs here in the outline, you will flesh them out with evidence/support in your actual essay.

Modern vs Postmodern chart

Modernity vs. Postmodernity Chart

Modernism vs Postmodernism  --The features in the table below are only tendencies, not absolutes. In fact, the tendency to see things in seemingly obvious, binary, contrasting categories is usually associated with modernism. The tendency to dissolve binary categories and expose their arbitrary cultural co-dependency is associated with postmodernism.

DRACULA                                                             INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE

Modernism/Modernity	Postmodern/Postmodernity
Master Narratives and Metanarratives of history, culture and national identity; myths of cultural and ethnic orgin.	Suspicion and rejection of Master Narratives; local narratives, ironic deconstruction of master narratives: counter-myths of origin.
Faith in "Grand Theory" (totalizing explantions in history, science and culture) to represent all knowledge and explain everything.	Rejection of totalizing theories; pursuit of localizing and contingent theories.
Faith in, and myths of, social and cultural unity, hierarchies of social-class and ethnic/national values, seemingly clear bases for unity.	Social and cultural pluralism, disunity, unclear bases for social/national/ethnic unity.
Master narrative of progress through science and technology.	Skepticism of progress, anti-technology reactions, neo-Luddism; new age religions.
Sense of unified, centered self;  "individualism," unified identity.	Sense of fragmentation and decentered self;  multiple, conflicting identities.
Idea of "the family" as central unit of social order: model of the middle-class, nuclear family.	Alternative family units, alternatives to middle-class marriage model, multiple identities for couplings and childraising.
Hierarchy, order, centralized control.	Subverted order, loss of centralized control, fragmentation.
Faith and personal investment in big politics (Nation-State, party).	Trust and investment in micropolitics, identity politics, local politics, institutional power struggles.
Root/Depth tropes.  Faith in "Depth" (meaning, value, content, the signified) over "Surface" (appearances, the superficial, the signifier).	Rhizome/surface tropes.  Attention to play of surfaces, images, signifiers without concern for "Depth".
Faith in the "real" beyond media and representations; authenticity of "originals"	Hyper-reality, image saturation, simulacra seem more powerful than the "real"; images and texts with no prior "original".  "As seen on TV" and "as seen on MTV" are more powerful than unmediated experience.
Dichotomy of high and low culture (official vs. popular culture);  imposed consensus that high or official culture is normative and authoritative	Disruption of the dominance of high culture by popular culture;  mixing of popular and high cultures, new valuation of pop culture, hybrid cultural forms cancel "high"/"low" categories.
Mass culture, mass consumption, mass marketing.	Demassified culture; niche products and marketing, smaller group identities.
Art as unique object and finished work authenticated by artist and validated by agreed upon standards.	Art as process, performance, production, intertextuality.  Art as recycling of culture authenticated by audience and validated in subcultures sharing identity with the artist.
Knowledge mastery, attempts to embrace a totality.  The encyclopedia.	Navigation, information management, just-in-time knowledge.  The Web.
Broadcast media, centralized one-  to-many communications.	Interactive, client-server, distributed, many-  to-many media (the Net and Web).
Centering/centeredness,  centralized knowledge.	Dispersal, dissemination,  networked, distributed knowledge
Determinancy	Indeterminancy, contingency.
Seriousness of intention and purpose, middle-class earnestness.	Play, irony, challenge to official seriousness, subversion of earnestness.
Sense of clear generic boundaries and wholeness (art, music, and literature).	Hybridity, promiscuous genres, recombinant culture, intertextuality, pastiche.
Design and architecture of New York and Boston.	Design and architecture of LA and Las Vegas
Clear dichotomy between organic and inorganic, human and machine	cyborgian mixing of organic and inorganic, human and machine and electronic
Phallic ordering of sexual difference, unified sexualities, exclusion/bracketing of pornography	androgyny, queer sexual identities, polymorphous sexuality, mass marketing of pornography
the book as sufficient bearer of the word;  the library as system for printed knowledge	hypermedia as transcendence of physical limits of print media;  the Web or Net as information system

Chart Created by Martin Irvine

UPDATED DUE DATE FOR FINAL ESSAY #1

DUE VIA EMAIL TUESDAY THE 13TH AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS!

EMAIL WITH ANY/ALL QUESTIONS TO KATEDURBINTEACHER@GMAIL.COM

Workshop Guidelines

Name of Paper Critic: ______________________

Name of Paper Author: _______________________

OUTLINE ONE:

WORKSHOP GUIDELINES

DIRECTIONS: Please answer in complete sentences and take time and care in responding, as you will be graded on these handouts. You should be addressing all questions within a given section. Give the notes to the Paper Author when finished. They will hand it in to me next week at the beginning of class and you will both get credit for the assignment.

 Does the essay’s thesis seem to be undeveloped or too broad, or is it just specific enough? Even if the thesis seems to be specific enough, suggest a way for the writer to make it even more specific and narrow. Also note any awkward grammar or unclear word choice. Remember, the thesis should detail what scene is being examined, what lens the author is using to examine it [religious, psychoanalytic, or race/class/gedner], and the larger cultural implications at stake. Also, is the thesis clearly arguable?

 Is the writer incorporating research from two scholarly sources into the essay? Do the sources seem to be a strong and relevant from the writing at hand (do not ask the writer to tell you about them, but judge them based solely on what is in the paper)? Write what you know about the sources below and give any suggestions for what you want to know more about:

Does the writer incorporate plenty of quotes from Dracula in the essay? They should! Are those quotes strong enough to use (i.e. “murder weapon quotes”)? Which quote is the strongest and which is the weakest? Why? Does the writer integrate the quotes into the paper seamlessly, with context and information about the sources they come from? Are they properly formatted via MLA style?

 Does the writer provide convincing, sufficient analysis for their quotations? Remember, analysis is as important than the quote itself. Make suggestions for improvement below, and be specific. The analysis should of course connect back to the lens used (i.e. psychoanalytic) and the cultural implications.

 Is the paper organized? Do the body paragraphs seem to build logically upon one another? Are the quotations logically organized? Give at least one suggestion for improvement.

 Lastly, it’s imperative that the cultural context be given researched, careful attention. Does the writer make a well-argued, specific, reasonable connection between their scene’s analysis and larger social issues at the time in history? If not, the paper will not receiving a passing score. Please give suggestions for improvement.

Is the scene enough to focus on, or should a parallel scene also be analyzed? If so, suggest a parallel scene to incorporate into the essay (brief response):