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Back
to Spring 2006 English Syllabus
Essay
1 – The Problems and Promise of American Life
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Lewis
Hine, Textile Workers (1909) |
For
the first few weeks of class we will be looking at artists, photographers,
and writers whose works respond to the times in which they lived. At its
finest, art has the power to illuminate and even to transform. In your
first essay examine how one of the following artists has illuminated an
important historical issue.
Your essay
should begin with an introduction that includes a clear thesis, or “road
map.” In this kind of essay your reader does not expect surprises.
You should outline what you intend to do in the essay and then follow
through. Carefully include in-text parenthetical citations for any material
you either quote directly or paraphrase. Conclude your essay with a separate
Works Cited page in which you arrange your sources, including the sources
for your images, alphabetically according to MLA standards.
Compose an
essay which is 750 -1000 words in length, double spaced, typed in 12 point
standard font, and stapled in the left-hand corner.
Effective
college level essays move past “what” and concentrate on “how”
or “why.” Here are some suggestions for topics. Note how the
suggestions are posed in the form of questions. The answers to the questions
can become thesis statements for essays.
Consider
one of the following as a focus of your essay:
The Native American “Problem”:
Zitkala Sa was the first Native American woman to tell her own
story in her own voice, without a translator. How does she illuminate
the problems of an American Indian girl who is forced to “fit
in” to the culture of “a superior race”? How
does she make the reader understand and sympathize with her plight
of being caught between two worlds? You might include some background
information about Indian boarding schools. Several excellent websites
have information, history, and photographs. Include two images
in your paper.
The Woman “Problem”:
How
does “The Yellow Wallpaper” illuminate attitudes toward
women at the end of the nineteenth century? Look at “Why
I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper” and decide how Charlotte Perkins
Gilman condemns the practice of isolating women who are “mentally
unstable.” Use your best search techniques to find out more
about how doctors in the nineteenth century treated women like
the narrator of the story. Include two images in your paper. You
can find some really interesting images illustrating treatment
of mental illness at the time Gillman wrote “The Yellow
Wallpaper.”
The Immigrant “Problem”:
Photographer
Jacob Riis exposed the stark reality of the lives of the poor
in New York City at the end of the 19th century. Look at again
at How the Other Half Lives and at Riis’ haunting
photographs. How does he argue for improving conditions of tenement
life? Include two of Riis’ images, “read” and
interpret them, and explain how they make a visual argument for
reform.
The Child Labor “Problem”:
Photographer
Lewis Hine used his lens as an instrument for change to alter
American policy toward child labor. Investigate how he managed
to record the exploitation of children in mines and factories
while working for the Child Labor Bureau. Find Hine’s photographs
that expose child labor practices. Include two of these images,
“read” and interpret them, and explain how they make
a visual argument for reform.
The “Problem” of Black Americans:
The
poetry of Langston Hughes defines the experience of African Americans
while both celebrating and protesting the condition of being black
in America. “Let America Be America Again,” and “I,
Too” speak to the shortcomings and the potential of the
American experience. What conclusions can you draw about how Hughes
sees America’s faults and possibilities? Or, reread “Ballad
of the Landlord” and examine how the poem becomes a cry
of protest. Include two images in your essay.
OR
How
does Hughes’ poetry reflect the ideas that he expresses
in “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”? Include
two images in your essay.
The “Problem” of Poverty and Displacement:
Look
at the Depression era photographs of Dorothea Lange or Walker
Evans. Choose two of Lange’s or Evans’ images and
examine how they visually construct a powerful human narrative
for this decade long nightmare in America.
The “Promise” of Modern America:
Photographer
Lewis Hine also chronicled the rise of the modern American city
in his photographs recording the building of the Empire State
Building. Find his series of photographs that celebrate both the
men and the towers of the new metropolis. Include two images in
your essay, “read” and interpret them, and explain
how they make a visual argument for the power and possibility
of this achievement.
The “Promise” of the Harlem Renaissance:
In
his “Great Migration” series Jacob Lawrence portrays
the experience of “[t]he migrant masses, shifting from countryside
to city, hurdl[ing] several generations of experience at a leap”
(Locke). Lawrence conceived of this series as a single narrative,
telling the story of black migration to the North. The paintings
at first seem simplistic; however, he manages to create great
drama. How does he do this? Could you talk about his series in
the same way you would talk about a short story or a novel? Include
two images in your essay.
OR
Alain
Locke, in “Enter the New Negro,” states the following:
“In the intellectual realm a renewed and keen curiosity
is replacing the recent apathy; the Negro is being carefully studied,
not just talked about and discussed. In art and letters, instead
of being wholly caricatured, he is being seriously portrayed and
painted.” Look at Aaron Douglas, Palmer Hayden, Sargent
Johnson, Winold Reiss (a white, German artist), the photographer
James Van Der Zee, or another artist of African American life
and outline how his/her work takes the subject of African American
life seriously. Include two images in your essay.
OR
Although
he was born at the high point of the Harlem Renaissance, John
Biggers (1924-2001), founder of the art department at Texas Southern
University, was the artistic descendent of the earlier Renaissance
artists by furthering “the revaluation by white and black
alike of the Negro in terms of his artistic endowments and cultural
contributions, past and prospective” (Locke). How does the
work of Biggers draw upon African tradition and make it meaningful
to the present? Include two images in your essay.
Is music your interest? Think about this:
J.
A. Rogers writes in “Jazz at Home” in the March 1925
Survey Graphic that jazz has become “common property
and . . . has absorbed the national spirit, that tremendous spirit
of go, the nervousness, lack of conventionality and boisterous
good-nature characteristic of the American, white or black, as
compared with the more rigid formal natures of the Englishman
or German.” Consider the prominence of music in much of
the African American art we have seen. Can you draw any conclusions
about why musical images appear so often in the art or how the
artists make you “hear” the images? Include two images
in your essay.
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You can probably
come up with many other possibilities or variations on the suggestions
above. We’re happy to talk to you about any other inspiration you
might have for an essay.
Essay
due: Beginning
of class, Tuesday, March 21
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Checklist:
- Paper
typed, double spaced, in standard 12 point font, stapled in the left-hand
corner
- 750 -
1000 words in length
- Original
title that catches the reader’s interest
- Introduction
with clear thesis statement
- Paragraphs
that support your thesis
- In-text
parenthetical citations for material paraphrased or quoted directly
- Conclusion
- A separate
Works Cited page acknowledging sources for text and images in MLA format
- 2 images
as evidence and illustration for your argument
Work Cited
Locke,
Alain. “Enter the New Negro.” Survey Graphic March
1925. 3 January 2005. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/harlem
Reproduction of Textile Workers:
Hine, Lewis.
Textile Workers. 1909. Online image. American Studies II. St.
Vincent College. <http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/ron/american_lit2/Images/childlabor.htm>
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