Write a paper of 4-6 pages (c. 1200-1800 words) in which you consider several passages from a single work in the Africa module that bear on a single topic.* For example, you might
• consider several incidents in which an aspect of a character’s personality is exhibited
• consider several passages in which a theme of the work (e.g., destiny, wisdom, motherhood, etc.) is illustrated, discussed, or otherwise presented, or
• consider several passages that you are able to connect through an idea that you apply to the work (even if it is not a theme presented by the work itself).
“Several” means at least two but, since this is a relatively short paper and you should really discuss (and not merely mention) the passages you consider, you should hesitate to choose more than three or four.
You should avoid passages that bear on your topic in the same way. Each passage you consider should add something new to the discussion (and not merely provide a further illustration of a point you have already made). For example, a passage might enable you to qualify the account of a character’s personality that is suggested by the passages you already considered. Or it might enable you to fill out your account of a theme by illustrating another aspect of it. Or the passages you consider might represent an apparent conflict or contradiction in the work that you are able to resolve by way of an idea you apply to it.
The organization of this paper can vary considerably depending on the topic you are discussing and the way it appears in the individual passages. One approach that will be appropriate in most cases is to first introduce the topic and then discuss the passages one by one, commenting on the way each is tied to your topic. You might conclude this sort of paper by drawing together these individual discussions and commenting on the group as a whole.
Even if you do not follow this pattern of organization, you should be careful to make the paper more than a series of independent discussions of individual passages. That is, you should discuss the relations among the passages you have chosen that lead you to discuss them as a group. And this discussion, like the discussions of the individual passages, should be more than a few brief comments.
Friday 10/10 is a lecture day, so I won’t meet you in class. I encourage you to turn in the paper electronically as an e-mail attachment, but I will accept hard copy, which you can give to me at the lecture, drop off at my office (Center 200H), or leave in my box in Center 207. (If you want a specific time for the deadline, you can count it as the end of the day Friday—i.e., by midnight.)
* In the case of poetry, you may consider more than one poem, but it will be best if you choose poems from a single author. Also, although the concept of “passages” does not apply directly to films, things like scenes and images played a role in our discussions analogous to passages, and they can do so also in this paper.