Paper 1

Read every word below carefully, more than once, before starting your essay.

Address the topic below in a question-driven essay of 750-1100 words (in the body of the essay, excluding headers, name, date, title, works cited entries, etc.).  In general, neutral fashion, raise a central question at the end of your introduction that the rest of the paper strives to answer (avoid answering the question in the introduction; instead, introduce the question).

For details of the physical formatting of your paper on paper—margins, headers, titles, etc.—see the simple stuff page.  For guidelines on quotation and documentation, see the quotes and documentation page.  Quotes from the readings to illustrate or substantiate your claims are required, so a works cited page is mandatory.

Note that you must submit the final draft in both hard copy (printed on paper) and electronic form (preferably as an email attachment, though floppy disks are okay if necessary).

I encourage you to seek my help with your paper outside of class. If my office hours don't mesh with your schedule, let me know, and we'll make arrangements for other times.

Before you begin writing the essay, construct a topic sentence outline just as we did for the second writing exercise (recall the question, "How is life difficult for teenagers?"). Begin the outline with the literal question your paper addresses, then give full topic sentences that answer the question directly for each primary point in your paper (i.e. for each body paragraph), just as they will appear in the essay itself, and conclude the outline with the the paper's overall thesis, answering the central question directly and combining your essential points from the various topic sentences. On the date of peer response, in addition to bringing a complete draft of the paper to class, you will turn in this topic sentence outline, possibly for reading quiz credit. For two sample topic sentence outlines, see this paper proposal page.

The topic:

Read every word below carefully, more than once, before starting your essay.

Choose one of the three options below and respond in an argumentative essay of 800-1250 words (in the body of the essay, excluding headers, name, date, title, works cited entries, etc.). Raise a central question at the end of your introduction that the rest of the paper strives to answer in persuasive format.

For details of the physical formatting of your paper on paper—margins, headers, titles, etc.—see the simple stuff page. For guidelines on quotation and documentation, see the quotes and documentation page. All options require that you offer quotes from the readings to illustrate or substantiate your claims, so a works cited page is required.

Note that you must submit the final draft in both hard copy (printed on paper) and electronic form (preferably as an email attachment, though floppy disks are okay if necessary).

Options:

1) Argue either for or against Laura Kipnis's suggestion that people are misguided in believing that romantic love should endure through a lifetime of contented monogamous marriage—and/or that love is vitally important to a fulfilling, quality life. Include at least three quotations from Kipnis's "Against Love," with at very least one quote on each side of the argument (i.e. in both the opposing views and in your own views).

2) Construct an argument either supporting or contending against any of Bertrand Russell's major criticisms of Christianity or Christian faith in "Why I Am Not a Christian." Include at least three quotations from the article in your discussion.

3) As we've seen in the recent readings and discussions, our society applies a myriad of stereotypes and cultural expectations to each of the sexes which influence how we act as individual men and women. Consciously or unconsciously, we adhere to these stereotypes and expectations or react against them.

For women, these stereotypes and expectations include the notions that women are intellectually inferior to men; that women should be attractive; that women belong in the house, not in the workplace; that strong, independent women are "bitchy"; that women who acknowledge and act upon their natural sexual desires are morally "loose"; that women are supposed to be "ladylike"—passive, submissive, demure, cooperative, nurturing, polite, etc. For men, the stereotypes and expectations include the ideas that men are tough and unemotional; that "given the chance, all men would be whores"; that "real men" must be independent and aggressive; that men are not "real men" if they don't have latent cravings for violence and if they don't love football, power tools, and cars with big engines. Men are also expected to be financially successful breadwinners for their families. In short, the stereotypes generally say that women should be selfless, pretty, and dainty, and that men should be "macho."

These cultural myths and stereotypes are but a few of the many expectations by which our culture imposes its ideals of masculinity and femininity upon us as individuals. You should also consider other significant expectations for men and women as established in our readings and class discussions or from your own observation.

Your task in this option is to elaborate what you see as the greatest obstacles stereotypes and cultural expectations pose for each of the sexes (meaning you must deal with both sexes.). The central question you must argue is who suffers more, men or women, from the cultural expectations these stereotypes impose upon them: in other words, who has it worse? Men or women?

You should probably deal with only one major stereotype or cultural expectation for each sex per body paragraph—this means you will need to be selective and discuss only the two or three most damaging or difficult stereotypes or expectations for each sex. With each major point you should 1) explain what the stereotype or cultural expectation is, and 2) show how the stereotype or cultural expectation poses obstacles or problems for the individual.

You must quote at least four of our most recent readings (those on gender issues), two on men and two on women, either illustrating the stereotypes or expectations you discuss or the obstacles or difficulties these cultural expectations bring about. This means that you must incorporate not just four quotations, but quotations from four separate articles. Quotations from four articles is a minimum: you can certainly quote from more than four readings total. 

Works cited info: For bibliographic information on the handouts, see the referring pages from our schedule of readings and assignments (the pages from which you loaded the Adobe PDF files). For the poems on websites linked from our online schedule, See QD5el.

Paper 3

Read every word below carefully, more than once, before starting your essay.

Write an analytical or argumentative research paper on a topic of your own choosing focusing narrowly on some specific aspect of Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych."  Your paper must meet each of the requirements below. Read these requirements carefully.

For details of the physical formatting of your paper on paper—margins, headers, titles, etc.—see the simple stuff page.  For guidelines on quotation and documentation, see the quotes and documentation page. 

Note that you must submit the final draft in both hard copy (printed on paper) and electronic form (on floppy disk or as an email attachment).

I encourage you to seek my help with your paper outside of class. If my office hours don't mesh well with your schedule, let me know, and we'll make arrangements for other times.

Paper requirements:

800-1200 words (in the body of the essay, excluding headers, name, date, title, works cited entries, etc.).

Before you begin writing the essay, construct a topic sentence outline just as we did for the second writing exercise (recall the question, "How is life difficult for teenagers?"). Begin the outline with the literal question your paper addresses, then give full topic sentences that answer the question directly for each primary point in your paper (i.e. for each body paragraph), just as they will appear in the essay itself, and conclude the outline with the the paper's overall thesis, answering the central question directly and combining your essential points from the various topic sentences. On the date of peer response, in addition to bringing a complete draft of the paper to class, you will turn in this topic sentence outline, possibly for reading quiz credit. For two sample topic sentence outlines, see this paper proposal page.

You may structure the essay to present a central question at the end of the introduction, or if you prefer, you may end the introduction with a thesis statement or a statement of purpose ("this essay will explore . . . ," e.g.).  Note that the topic sentence outline described above must still begin with a literal question regardless of whether you incorporate the question into the text of your paper.

You must include at least five quotations from the story itself, "The Death of Ivan Ilych."

You must do some research and incorporate quotes from at least two sources of legitimate scholarly criticism into the discussion of the story.  ("Legitimate" means truly scholarly sources, so items from the popular press, encyclopedias, and study aids such as Cliff's Notes, SparkNotes, Master Plots, etc., are not acceptable.) No world wide web sources of any sort are valid—only sources available through the RSU library or its subscription databases are acceptable. You may use articles from the Tolstoy criticism handout as your "research."

Bibliographic info for Tolstoy handouts:

The story itself is taken from the fifth edition of The Story and Its Writer, edited by Ann Charters and published in 1999 by Bedford/St. Martin's, located in Boston.

The first article of criticism or commentary is titled "Three Stories by Tolstoy."  The author is E. M. Forster, the article was taken from a book called Two Cheers for Democracy, published in 1972 in London by Edward Arnold.  You don't need to worry about an editor or the edition of this book.  The pages of the article are 208-12.

The second Tolstoy article is "Death the Supreme Ironist," by Charles Glicksberg.  It was taken from a book called The Ironic Vision in Modern Literature, published in 1969 by Martinus Nijhoff in The Hague (a city).  Pages 81-86.  No editor or edition to worry about here either.

The third Tolstoy article is by Temira Pachmuss, called "The Theme of Love and Death in Tolstoy's Ivan Ilych," from the journal The American Slavic and East European Review.  The Volume # is 20.1, the year is 1961, page numbers 76-83.

For secondary sources other than the Tolstoy handouts, you must turn in photocopies or printouts of each page of the secondary sources from which you take quotes.  Highlight the quoted passages (on the photocopy of the criticism, not in your paper).

Very important note: Papers that do not meet the research requirements—quotations from at least two secondary sources of literary scholarship or criticism, with photocopied pages attached, if required—cannot receive passing grades.

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The greatest challenge with this assignment is arriving at an appropriate topic.  Basically, any significant theme, motif, issue, technique, or other specific aspect of the story is fair game.  You are by no means restricted to the suggestions below, but here are a few ideas to consider:

• The falseness of Ivan Ilych's life
• The significance of Gerasim
• The story's religious implications
• Tolstoy's social criticism
• The relevance of the story to contemporary readers
• Psychological realism in Ivan Ilych's confrontation with his own mortality

Reminders:
The single most important sentence in your essay is the central question you set up in the topic sentence outline: be sure this question sets up a viable topic, one worthy of addressing in a college-level paper. Feel free to email me or call me if you aren't certain about the validity of your central question.
Every body paragraph's topic sentence should answer the central question directly.
Sweat the details: use the GR, N, SS, QD and WP "handouts" and proofread closely.