ASSIGNMENT HELP | CWL 432/HUM 532 Final Presentation Schedule & Guidelines

The goal of your group presentations is to present arguments and conclusions about a new short story by drawing on knowledge gained from studying “haunting” narratives in class. Your aim is to illuminate some aspect of your group’s text through: close reading, comparison to texts we have already read, research, and creative work.
You must read your text/watch your video, and post to iLearn the following assignment, by Sunday, April 12th, at 5 PM.
MILESTONE #1 (due April 12th at 5 PM)
1) Check your group’s iLearn discussion forum. Read all posts that have been made. Avoid repeating points made by others.
If there is some overlap, that is fine – but you must develop at least one idea that is fully original for #2 and #3 below.
2) List what you see as two major themes. For each theme, write two sentences explaining how the author approaches the
theme, and what the author leaves you thinking/feeling about the theme. Your comments should clearly explain your idea
of the author’s aims in handling that theme in some specific way.
3) List what you see as two important aspects of the story’s writing. You could characterize the style, narrative framing,
language, imagery, metaphors, or anything that is not chiefly an element of the story told. For each point, write two
sentences describing the effects of the writing, and how it affects your sense of the story’s significance, aims, effects, or
concerns. Your comments should clearly explain your idea of the author’s aims in handling that writing in the specific way
that you identify.

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4) Post the four points, and approximately eight sentences (two per point), to your group’s forum.
5) By TUESDAY April 14th, re-check the discussion forum and familiarize yourself with the points others have made.
Comment on each post (not necessarily every point). Also on this day, you should decide which role each group member
will play (see attachment)
In class on Thursday, April 16th, your group will discuss your responses to the text. You will try to settle on what you feel are the most compelling general ideas that interest you—ideas that you plan to present to the class after you refine them. By the end of your fifteen-minute brainstorm session, you should settle on what you feel are the two strongest themes, and the two most interesting and insightful observations about writing that you would like to pursue.
MILESTONE #2 — By Sunday, April 19th, at 5 PM, each individual should post on iLearn their own individual interpretations or
analyses of how the text conveys each of the two themes you have chosen to explore. Try not to repeat points you made prior to discussion – instead, try to expand or refine your ideas about the text. Support your ideas with reference to some particular passage in the text.

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After 5 PM on Monday the 20th, but BEFORE the next class, each group member must re-check iLearn to read the posts by other group members. MAKE COMMENTS ON AT LEAST TWO POSTS BEFORE CLASS BEGINS.
In class on Tuesday, April 21st, you will discuss your interpretations and choose one or two of the strongest arguments about your chosen themes to make those the backbone of your presentation. All subsequent work should be conducted with an eye to refining or illuminating something about those arguments. In conversation with your group, develop some working hypotheses about how (or whether) your observations about the writing bear upon your arguments about themes.
MILESTONE #3 — By class on Thursday, April 23rd you must post to iLearn your own individual perspective on the relationship between writing and theme. This should DRAW ON YOUR PROJECTED INDIVIDUAL FINDINGS (research, creative work, comparison, etc.). Your research can be at a “draft” stage, but must be sufficiently begun for you to have a sense of the results it will yield. In that class, you will share your preliminary results and discuss how they fit together. Try to synthesize a composite perspective that is richer than your original arguments about themes and writing.
MILESTONE #4 — By Tuesday, April 28th, you must have your completed research results clearly articulated on a typed page that you bring to class. Your group will decide the order of presentation, and create an outline for the presentations.
On Thursday April 30th, you must bring an INDEX CARD with your MOST BRILLIANT ARGUMENT illuminating your group
thesis summarized in 1-2 sentence. You must turn these in to a group spokesperson, whom you elect.
CWL 432/HUM 532 Final Presentation Schedule & Guidelines

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Individual Roles for Final Presentations
Individual members will each play one of the following roles. You should definitely have at least one member working on
comparison.
Comparative work: Compare and contrast your primary text to another we’ve read, making sure to discuss some aspect of the writing as well as the theme. Be sure to say how the comparison and contrast brings what particular features of your primary text into
relief, and what we learn from the comparison itself. Deal with scenes that have not featured largely in class discussion. Your analyses should tell us something original about both texts.

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Historical/Literary Scholarship: Find one article discussing your text (or author, if you cannot find anything on the text) that is
NOT available through Wikipedia or other notes. BRIEFLY summarize only the main point, then evaluate. Compare the author’s conclusions to your own. List your source in your group’s forum with the subject line: “SCHOLARSHIP SOURCE.” Be Careful:
do NOT just list interesting facts about your author. Only choose facts or critical arguments that you directly connect to your group’s interpretations and arguments, not merely to support but to enrich those arguments.
Creative Work: Develop a work of art or other form of NON-LINGUISTIC media representation that illuminates something unique about your text, something that would be difficult to see without your chosen creative form. Can include performance, powerpoint, creation of object, etc.
Each member is responsible for making a UNIQUE point about the text you have chosen as illuminated by the research undertaken.
Preliminary research results are due on iLearn AND in class Thursday April 23rd. You will need to share 1 page that explains:

1. What main ideas/sources/texts/media objects will you be using/creating
2. Your reasons for choosing them
3. The main idea exemplified IN YOUR CONTRIBUTION (not your group’s text): be sure to explain how your work ADDS
   to the “theme” or “aspect of writing” your group has chosen to explore.

SAMPLE SOLUTION

Themes

The first theme is existentialism, which is a theory in philosophy that posits that individuals act out of their free will and are free PLACE YOUR ORDER NOW AT writtask.com | in the story is fully aware of his past life, which he narrates to his wife. Even though he is not quite sure of the true purpose and desire he needs to fulfill, he is fully aware of how unsatisfying his life is. The author uses the “curse” as a symbol of a dissatisfied life resulting from his previous PLACE YOUR ORDER NOW AT writtask.com | “And somehow, this mistake has just stayed there, unresolved, casting a dark shadow on our lives” (Murakami, 42). This theme makes the reader feel the yearning to accomplish an unfinished goal or realize a dream that they had long forgotten but has been awoken PLACE YOUR ORDER NOW AT writtask.com | theme is resistance to change. The protagonist does not expressly show his resistance to his new situation, which is marriage, but he ends up internalizing it. The author uses McDonald’s to symbolize…