Your World

"Your World" Essay

Discuss what's happened in your life to create the borders of your idea of "world."

Required reading:
Orientation to World Literature. What makes something literary?
•Read the syllabus, Gaiman "Introduction" to Trigger Warning (2015), Nabokov "Symbols and Signs" (1948), and "Enchanted Fiddle" (c 1700).
•Literary craft, from the writer's perspective. •Read Snijders "Geluk" (in translation, 2012) and Lahiri "A Temporary Matter" (2001).

Literature on issues in the world: Class and ethnicity.
•Read de Maupassant "The Necklace" (c 1850-1890) and Alexie "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" (2003) our essay should follow the syllabus guidelines about substance. Complexity means that your essay should culminate in a question or a hypothesis. Whatever the case, your essays need to take in the course to this point and make a good summative claim (or thesis, if you prefer that word). As relevant, include things we've read and discussed in this course.

Essays should be 400-600 words. They should include no summary, no "padding" or "BS."

Knowledge:Arts
- analyze a literary text, with emphasis on form (e.g., poetry, fiction), stylistic features (e.g., word choice, imagery), and content (e.g., cultural traditions), connecting what they are learning in the course with knowledge they have acquired in other areas
- analyze and interpret the historical and cultural context for a broad survey of literature from different times and different cultures, in both western and non-western traditions

Skills 1: Communication
- interpret and analyze, both orally and in writing, ideas, moral issues, and values reflected in the literature read in the course.

Skills 2: Critical Thinking
- analyze a text from within a cultural or literary context or from a variety of perspectives, comparing, contrasting those texts to each other, and synthesizing conclusions about them.
- write a well-developed essay, using secondary sources, and analyzing how one or more literary texts reflect the culture that produced them.
- analyze a text from within a cultural or literary context or from a variety of perspectives, comparing, contrasting those contexts and perspectives with their own.

Skills 3: IT
- use digital technologies in research and writing. identify, find, and use information appropriate for a discussion of literature.

Values 1: Personal Ethics
- use appropriate documentation to acknowledge outside resources used in their work.
- interpret and analyze, both orally and in writing, ideas, moral issues, and values reflected in the literature read for class.

Values 2: Civic Responsibility
- analyze and interpret the relationship between the individual and society in a broad survey of literature from different times and different cultures in both western and non-western traditions

Values 3: Global & Cultural Understanding
- analyze the ways in which ideas and values depicted in literary works from other times and cultures interact with or contrast with those of American culture or the culture of the students' countries of origin.
- analyze the ways in which ideas and values depicted in literary works from other times and cultures interact with or contrast with those of American culture or the culture of the students' countries of origin.