Take-Home Midterm Paper & Seminar #4
HUM 211 MIC/WIC - Fall 2007 - Prof. Cora Agatucci

DEADLINES: See Fall 2007 HUM 211 Course Plan - Week #5
COURSE GRADING & related policies: See Fall 2007 HUM 211 Syllabus

This Midterm has two parts, each part offering you topic choices
designed to help you achieve key HUM 211 course learning outcomes.

MANUSCRIPT FORM

MIDTERM PART 1
Suggested Length: 2-to-3 word-processed, double-spaced pages (about 500 words)
written on ONE of the following topics:

MIDTERM PART 2
Suggested Length: 2 -to-3 word-processed, double-spaced pages (about 500 words)
written on ONE of the following topics:

HUM 211 Midterm Paper Citation Guidelines
Cite Your Sources & Avoid Plagiarism!!

General Advice: In your Midterm Paper, you will need to develop, support and illustrate key points clearly and persuasively with well-selected citations (quotations, paraphrases, summaries) from relevant HUM 211 course materials, as indicated in Midterm directions & topic choices,   You are also trying to demonstrate to Cora and your other HUM 211 readers that you have diligently prepared for class (e.g. by doing all the assigned readings, Seminar preps, etc.), regularly and actively attended to in-class discussions & activities - and can draw upon this background knowledgeably to help you thoughtfully develop and persuasively support key points made in Parts I and II of your Midterm Paper.

·         Select and cite relevant "evidence" from sources that best support and illustrate your points.

·        Beware of  the impulse to give long quotations!  Quote and/or paraphrase only as much of a source as needed and relevant to make your points. 

·       Interpret or explicate (explain) your citations. In general, all quotations and paraphrases should be accompanied by your interpretative commentary of what the citations mean and your explanation of how/why the cited passages relate to and support your points. Don't assume a quoted passage will speak for itself, for no two readers will necessarily interpret and understand a passage in exactly the same way you do. You may need to single out and explicate specific words or phrases within your citations to clarify how you are interpreting them and/or why they are relevant or important to your point.

·      Do NOT give lengthy plot summaries of an assigned film or novel that we have all viewed or read together as a class.  Summarize only as much of the plot needed, or only that part of the plot most relevant,  to support or illustrate an interpretive point or explanation that you are presenting in your paper.

In-Text Citation - MLA Style Guidelines & Models: When you cite (quote, paraphrase, summarize) HUM 211 course sources in your Midterm Paper, you need to use MLA-style in-text citation practices to make clear to your HUM 211 readers which author/source you are citing. 

·         Make clear which author and source you are citing: e.g. integrate author or title tags into your sentences - especially when you first introduce a source in your Midterm Paper, when you move on to a new paragraph, and when you are switching back and forth between citations from two or more different sources especially within the same paragraph. You will also need to cite page numbers for quotations and paraphrases if the source has stable page numbers (see below), and it is also helpful to your readers to indicate which part of a source is being cited if relevant.
EXAMPLES:

While the film Keita: Heritage of the Griot does not depict what happened to Sundjata after he went into exile, most West African viewers would probably know the rest of the hero's epic story.  Sundjata eventually overcame all obstacles and became king of the fabled Mali Empire ("Epic of Sundjata").

Historian James Giblin corrects the racist stereotype "that in the past African peoples lived in a state of primitive barbarism" ("Images of Africa & African History" 5). Giblin advises students to beware of "how Western conceptions of 'race' and 'racial' difference have influenced our notions of the African past" (4).

Torn from her African home and faced with the brutal realities of New World Caribbean slave life, the Long Memoried Woman decides she must look inside herself for a means to survive the trauma: "I must construct myself a dream/one dream is all I need to keep/me from the borders of this darkness" ("IIALMW Film Notes..." Part 2: "One Dream" online).

Djeliba and Mr. Fofano come into direct conflict over the education of Mabo Keita.  Mabo is torn between these two:  “I want to go to school, but I want the story to continue" (Keita Film Notes & Viewing Guide"; "Film Sequence and Scene Notes" sect. "17. Cut to Present: the Keita home").

Keita film director Dani Kouyate views modernity and tradition as "two parallel realities, and we are in between. And this is the problem. Sometimes we are traditional, sometimes we are modern without ever having achieved to integrate the two in an intelligent way. And this is why we have to take the bull by the horns" (Gavron and Reinwald, in "Keita Film Notes & Viewing Guide"; "Film Introduction" sect. "Director Dani Kouyaté & Griot Sotigui Kouyaté").

Catherine Ancholou, a Nigerian scholar, explains that Olaudah Equiano's slave narrative must be studied "to connect, to not forget, to remember, and to take responsibility for the actions of our forefathers”  (“Olaudah Equiano” online).

In his account of the notorious Middle Passage from Africa to the New World, young Olaudah Equiano reports himself  "overpowered with horror and anguish" by what he experienced when first taken aboard the European slave ship ("Olaudah Equiano," Ch. 2: online). Convinced that he was "to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces and long hair," Equiano was ready to commit suicide by throwing himself overboard.

·         Did you cite only HUM 211 sources and follow In-Text Citation guidelines given above in your Midterm? 
Good!--then you do NOT need to provide a Works Cited (or bibliography) at the end of your Midterm Paper.  However . . .

·         Outside Sources: If you cite any "outside" sources - i.e. any sources that are not required HUM 211 reading/viewing and not, therefore, readily accessible to other HUM 211 students -  you must not only follow the general in-text citation guidelines given above, but you will also need to provide complete bibliographical information on non-HUM 211 "outside" source/s in a Works Cited page placed at the end of your Midterm Paper. Please see Cora for assistance.

Fall 2007 HUM 211 Syllabus | Course Plan | Online Course Pack Index
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