Final Assignment
This is going to be your last and most fun assignment, involving a novel of your own selection. First you will have a tutorial with me about the novel you chose, and then you write a short paper.
To begin, first choose a novel
This is the novel below ↓
Jin Ba (Pa Chin)
Family (If you are a rebellious son or daughter chafing against a restrictive upbringing and domineering parents or grandparents, consider this one.)
And finally, you will write a paper in which you interpret your book in some interesting way, just as you do in our weekly discussions. (write about family relationships)
Your paper will begin by stating a thesis or claim. What kind of thesis? I suggest that it involve comparing your book to Chronicles of a Blood Merchant by Yu Hua
-
First, state your thesis clearly. I recommend beginning with the sentence “My thesis is ___.” Failing to have a thesis is, well, failing. (In this class, I would actually recommend making your thesis statement easy to find by coloring it red.)
Second, make your thesis a strong, interesting claim rather than a trivial one. (An example of a trivial claim is, “These books have some similarities and also some differences.” That is true but trivial and uninteresting but not informative since everyone knows it and no one disputes it, as with the claim “Night always follows day.” An example of an interesting thesis might be, “As I will demonstrate, in both of these books the heroines are intriguingly similar either to both Princess Leia and Wonder Woman.” As philosopher Karl Popper asks, which is the more interesting thesis, that it will rain sometime in October, or that it will rain little vials of blood on October 12?)
Examples of Bad and Good Theses
Example 1: “Each of these novels portrays some kind of heroism.” This thesis is a ‘D’. How come? It is “begging the question”; that is, it took the question (“What can you say about how these novels portray heroism?”) and sneakily repackages it as a pseudo- answer (“They all portray heroism in some way.”) It is not really an answer. If you asked me, “How do I get to 5th and Ivy from here?” and I responded, “Oh right, 5th and Ivy. You
The problem with a thesis like “X and Y have some similarities but also some differences” is that it’s true of absolutely anything. Don’t believe me?
-
Alexander Hamilton and Bob Marley: They were both men and both born in the Caribbean. But one wore a powdered wig.
-
Pickles and astroturf: Both are green. But pickles aren’t made of plastic. True? Yes. Interesting? No!
HUMN 224 Spring 2022
can get there from here,” have I answered your question? That’s the problem with this thesis.
Example 2: “In these novels, women are oftens subordinate to men.” This is a ‘C’. How come? It’s true, yes. But is it interesting? Hell no. Maybe it was still interesting in the 1970s, but now it’s completely obvious, and we have all been saying this in discussions all semester.
Example 3: “These novels appear to be about heroism (or femininity, or masculinity, etc.), but I will prove that in reality, they are not.” Hey, this sounds interesting! It’s so unexpected. This definitely has my attention! And what about the grade? Is it a ‘B’ or an ‘A’ thesis? That depends on whether you prove it successfully. (In the end, even if you do not, this was still a better, more interesting thesis than those first two.)
1. “Above all things, entertain us. We would rather read a paper with a questionable but eye-catching thesis than one that’s true but trivial and boring.”
Third, demonstrate that your thesis is true. Even if Snoot and Molly, my dogs, are not ultimately persuaded, they are more interested in seeing you argue well for your claim, however audacious it is.
For length, I suggest anywhere from 800 to 1000 words, depending on how much you have to say. You do not need to summarize or describe the book, since I have read them, and I do not care about the formatting, font, margins, etc. If you really want to finger paint the words using sheep’s blood, or glue letters made from dried pasta onto
HUMN 224 Spring 2022
the marble floor of Kendall Hall and then send me hi-resolution photographs, go ahead. Otherwise, I’d be satisfied with a Word doc or PDF. If you would like comments, please mark your submission “comments please.”
Feel free to email your paper to me at [email protected] anytime before 5:30pm on Wed., May 18.
Keys to success:
-
1) As always, read the book at least twice. Many people pook out on this, and I can spot it a mile away. Your paper needs to make it abundantly clear, through its sophistication, that you studied the book twice (at least).
-
2) Begin your analysis by making a claim/thesis. I suggest putting it in bold type. Furthermore, make sure it is something substantive and arguable, not just something trivial, like “This book was interesting” or “There were some similarities, but also some differences.”) Everything after that should explain or support that claim.
-
3) Avoid just chugging through a laundry list of unconnected points. That is the same as not having a thesis, and it is always boring.
-
4) Do not plagiarize. You will be better off NOT trying to use SparkNotes or its online cousins. Just do your own reflecting. If you choose not to take my advice and use such a resource, be supremely cautious and cite the bejeezus out of anything you take from there! I have a collection of all those things here in my office and I do not want to spend my Christmas flunking somebody for plagiarizing. It is agony when it happens. (This is a good, brief guide to avoiding plagiarism: https://www.csuchico.edu/sjd/documents/avoiding-plagiarism.pdf )
-
5) Beware phrasing your conclusions as “I feel like …” What counts here is not what you feel but what you believe and think. Saying “I feel that …” is safe—no one can dispute that you feel what you feel; it’s the easy way out. The harder way, what you came to college to get better at, is to form conclusions, conclusions that you can support with evidence and argue for.