Your final exam will consist of three sections: 1) Identifications;
2) Close Readings; 3) Essay (topic distributed IN ADVANCE; see below)
The exam is closed-book, closed-notes.
Here is a more detailed description of each section:
Part I: IDs (40 points). Approx. time: 60 minutes
In this section you will be given TWENTY passages (or names, objects, etc.) to identify. For EACH of the TWENTY, you should: 1) identify the author and the text (full name and title) from which the passage or selection is taken; and 2) briefly situate the passage or selection within the text, in order to show that you're not just guessing. For a passage, you might indicate where it is, who's involved, what it refers to, or what's happening; for a person, place, or thing, you might simply tell who, what, or where it is. If you are identifying a passage from a poem, you may situate it by briefly describing its significance instead. Note: You do not need to write extensive analyses—the point here is simply to identify the passage—but at the same time don't just jot down a few words for your response. Finally, you do not need to know specific titles of poems or short stories, though you are welcome to give them if you do.
You are expected to give the full name for each author and the full
title for each book.
Part II: Close reading (30 points). Approx. time: 60 minutes
In this section you will be given five longer passages. You are to pick TWO, and for each of the TWO you should: 1) identify the author and text from which the passage is taken; and 2) do a detailed "close reading" of the passage. Although you should probably describe what is happening in the passage and perhaps also locate it within the work, this is not the place simply to paraphrase or do plot summary. It's the place to analyze the passage closely: to explain the way it is put together, to follow the movement of its language, and to relate the passage to the larger aims of the work as a whole. Possible details on which to focus include: word choice, sounds, arrangement, patterns, metaphor, imagery, syntax, rhythm, design, rhyme, repetition, punctuation, point of view, tone of voice -- all the elements that make a passage "do" the things it's trying to do. How do these elements help to communicate, create, or shape what's happening in the passage itself? Finally, what makes this passage a significant moment in the book, and how does your close reading make that significance more clear? What salient thematic, narrative, and/or linguistic aspects of the text are exemplified in your chosen passage?
Part III: Essay (30 points). Approx. time: 60 minutes
We have decided to give you all four essay questions IN ADVANCE of the exam. Here's the catch: only THREE will appear on the exam, and you must write on ONE. You are not expected to write out an answer in advance; indeed, you will not be permitted to bring a pre-written answer to the exam. But you are welcome to spend some time thinking about how you might answer the various questions. At the exam, you should write a lively, detailed, and carefully argued response. You are not expected to provide exact quotations from your reading, but you are expected to support your arguments with specific examples from the texts. Unless prohibited below, you may write on texts that you have discussed in your papers for this course, but you may not simply repeat arguments you have already made in those papers.
1. Many of the texts in our course are interested in the possibility, and in some cases the great difficulty, of crossing boundaries. Lone Star comes to mind, for example, but the interest in this topic isn't limited to that film or even to our unit on Crossings; on the contrary, we have seen texts that explore the boundaries not only between persons and places but between genders, classes, cultures, ethnicities, periods, and so on. Write an essay in which you discuss the presence—and the permeability—of boundaries in our texts. Which boundaries have been permeable? Are there any that are not? Why or why not? Focus your essay on two or three texts. Special note: if you wrote your third paper on borders or boundaries in either Lone Star or Middle Passage, you may not use that text in your answer to this question.
2. Imagine that you have the power to invite any of the authors on our syllabus to a dinner party. Whom would you invite, and what would they talk about? Why? You may stage this as a conversation, or you may write a third-person account of the discussion—its preoccupations, insights, clashes, and so on. For this question, you are not limited to stylistic analysis; you may also discuss course thematics. But be sure to avoid mere plot summary. The crucial advice here is to find a compelling point of focus, rather than let the discussion wander aimlessly.
3. Near the end of John Sayles's film Lone Star, Otis Payne tells his grandson Chet that "Blood only means what you let it." Write an essay in which you discuss Otis's claim by examining the role of blood—literal or otherwise—in this course. What has blood meant in other texts, or to other writers? How would different writers on our syllabus respond to Otis's claim? Feel free to think about blood in a range of possible meanings and incarnations, from the literal blood in one's body to more symbolic and metaphorical uses. You should focus your essay on two or three texts, and you do not have to write specifically about Lone Star in your response.
4. Imagine that you are an editor at a publishing house, and you have just received an unpublished manuscript from one of the authors on our syllabus. But the cover page has been lost, and there is no longer any identifying information about the author. Whose text do you think it is, and why? How do you know? For this question, in other words, you will be referring to an imaginary text by one of the authors we have read this term, but you will be talking about its features as if it were real. This gives you the opportunity to show off your knowledge about thematic, formal, stylistic, and even temporal markers in any of the authors we've read. In "identifying" this text, you should make reference to its similarities to and differences from actual texts we have read, both by the author you choose to "identify" and by those you rule out. While genre (poems, short stories, film script, etc.) may of course guide you in your identification, it is wise to keep in mind that authors often experiment with other forms: Fitzgerald might try his hand at poetry; Rich might be interested in composing an actual film script. Genre alone should not identify the author. Use this question to show off what you know, be creative, and give yourself a break on remembering character names. If you wish, you may give invented citations in stylistic imitation of your author, or you may paraphrase from the imaginary text.
Example: Peanuts, Mickey Mouse, Garfield, or South Park?
"While the comic strip form alone suggests the likelihood of a Peanuts-
or Garfield-style spin-off, we should not disallow the possibility that
Walt Disney or the creators of South Park also used these forms.
The preponderance of human characters rules out the work of Walt Disney,
however, since human characters form no part of the Mickey Mouse or other
animal-based strips for which the work of the cartoonist is known.
The fact that these human characters are children points away from a Garfield
spin-off, since no children have appeared in that strip, and the quality
of the lines are not as smooth as those of Jim Davis. The centrality
of a round-headed figure certainly suggests Charles M. Schultz, but the
children of South Park are similarly structured; the symmetry of the head,
however, and the lack of the peculiarly flattened heads and bodies so typical
of South Park drawing seems also to indicate Schultz, as does the lack
of obscenity in the characters' speech . . . etc., etc."