[Please place complete MLA-style heading in the top left-hand corner of the first page]
Justin Garcia (your name)
HUM 210, Prof. C. Agatucci (identify course & instructor)
Final - Final Draft (identify assignment)
7 December 2006 (identify date assignment is due)

HUM 210 Final & Seminar #8 Directions

FINAL PART I: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Please see handout directions previously distributed during Week #8,
and reproduced below.

FINAL PART II: SHORT ESSAY
Comparative Analysis of two selected HUM 210 texts
to explain what you have gained from HUM 210 study this term.
Suggested Length: 500-750 words
(or about 2-3 wordprocessed double-spaced pages)

YOU ARE HERE ~ HUM 210 FINAL & Seminar 8 Directions  -  HUM 210 Fall 2006
URL of this webpage: http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum210/final_seminar8.htm
Last updated: 28 November 2006

HUM 210 FINAL PART I: Annotated Bibliography Directions
(Previously distributed in class, Week #8)
DOUBLE SPACE YOUR ENTIRE ASSIGNMENT!

Introduction
Directions: In one or two paragraphs, introduce the topic and research question(s) that you are using this Annotated Bibliography to explore and answer.  Explain why you have chosen this topic or question(s): e.g., why/how you became interested in investigating it further through this research assignment.  Explain how the topic is relevant to our Hum 210 studies (see also Hum 210 Learning Outcomes in the Syllabus) and how it offers a valuable extension – depth and/or breadth – to the topics and texts we have studied together this term in HUM 210, for you as well as for others.   

Annotated Bibliography
Directions: This section will present your reviews of three-to-five good sources that you have located and consulted on your selected topic.  Select “outside” sources (i.e. not required course sources) relevant to your topic.  Do not select sources all of the same type.  The sources you choose to include should “good” ones that you can recommend for persuasive reasons you can state.  Sources should be reviewed in annotated bibliography form as in the following examples: for each of your sources, begin with a full bibliographical entry in correct MLA style, followed by the “annotation”: a well-developed paragraph offering a concise descriptive summary of the source contents, emphasizing what the source has to contribute on your topic and/or research questions, and a brief evaluation of the source’s major strength(s) and any weakness(es) – but since you are recommending these sources, their strengths should necessarily outweigh their drawbacks.  Order your annotated bibliography either alphabetically or hierarchically (i.e. best source first, second best source second, third best source third, etc.).

Examples for Annotated Bibliography format in MLA Style:

Chinua Achebe: A World of Ideas.  [Televised Interview.]  PBS Video, Public Affairs Television, WNET/New York and WWTTW/Chicago, 1989. Films for the Humanities, 1994.
From The Moyers Collection comes this insightful videotaped interview with Chinua Achebe, originally filmed for Bill Moyers' PBS television series A World of Ideas (1989).  Achebe discusses the role of the African storyteller, one who hears the music of history and weaves the fabric of memory, one obliged to be the people's collective conscience--sometimes to offend "the Emperor" in so doing. "It is the storyteller... who makes us who we are, that creates history."   Achebe thus addresses one of my key research questions, What are the roles of the African storyteller?  A man caught between two worlds, Achebe discusses his observations and criticisms of both African and Western politics and culture, the stages in his awakening to inaccurate and demeaning depictions of black Africans in works such as Conrad's Heart of Darkness, to his closing advice that the West: "listen to the weak."  Bill Moyers is, in my opinion, a brilliant interviewer, who does his homework, poses insightful and probing leading and follow-up questions, and then gives Achebe the floor.  Thus, this short interview (28 min.) offers surprising depth and breadth, as well as opportunity to learn first-hand from one of the greatest African storyteller and novelist. 

Hannah Valentine and Lethe Jackson: Slave Letters, 1837-1838:  An On-line Archival Collection from the Campbell Family Papers.  The Digital Scriptorium, Special Collections Library, Duke University, 1996.   11 March 2002 <http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/campbell/>.
This website offers a collection of letters written by two U.S. house slaves, Hannah Valentine and Lethe Jackson.  Their owner, David Campbell, was the governor of Virginia from 1837-1840.  The letters cover topics including everyday life, issues surrounding the War of 1812, and other topics that give the reader an insight into the slaves' views.   You can view photographs of the actual letters, or you can view a text-style presentation of them.  This is a good source for those who are interested in African-American slave life and want to review original letters that have not been edited or filtered.

Schmidt, J. Howard, and John S. Hashimoto.  “Polls and Public Opinion.”  New York Times 22 Mar. 1994, late ed.: B2. 
Schmidt and Hashimoto tested the hypothesis that poll results on socio-political issues shape public opinion on those issues. This study is particularly relevant to one of my leading research questions: just how much power does the U.S. media have to influence public opinion on political issues?  Schmidt and Hashimoto conducted surveys and interviews of one hundred college students, half male, half female, and the study revealed that subjects were most likely to be influenced by opinion polls if they did not know much about the issues and/or they had no strong pre-existing personal views on the issues.  Given the small sampling limited to college students, this study is hardly conclusive, nor representative of the American public at large.  Yet Schmidt and Hashimoto’s study suggests that some segments of the population may be immune to media influence, particularly if they have taken the time to study the issues and form their own conclusions.

Thompson, Stith.  The Folktale.  New York: Dryden, 1986. 
Thompson, folklorist and linguist, offers a useful survey of forty-six popular folktales used in Euro-American literary works.  He traces the histories of predominantly European folktales from their oral cultural roots to their literary transformations, and examines their literary functions with some illuminating results.  I found some interesting cross-cultural correlations to the ways African oral folktales are used in modern African literature and fiction: for example, multiple and changing versions of an oral tale give Western fiction writers freedom to select and adapt a folktale to make it serve new literary uses and messages.  Still, it is clear that oral arts traditions do not carry the same social and spiritual weight in European works as they do in African arts and literatures.  Thompson’s sometimes dense and jargon-ridden prose style may frustrate non-specialist audiences, but the persistent reader interested in the oral roots of world literatures will find many rewards in this knowledgeable, well-researched, and thoroughly indexed reference book.

Copyright © 1997 - 2006, Cora Agatucci, Professor of English
Humanities Department, Central Oregon Community College
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