In this unit, you will critically analyze a short text to discuss how that text defines truth. The final draft of your critical analysis should be approximately five to seven double spaced typed pages in length. As it engages with the primary text, this critical analysis should be in dialogue with up to two additional sources. Successful critical analyses will show depth rather than breadth, enlightening the reader to the truth(s) at work in the text and opening her eyes to larger humanist questions. See the Humanities Critical Analysis Rubric for more information.
Proposal due by 5pm on June 2nd, posted to your blog.
To begin, you should select a short text to explicate. Although you need not know precisely what you will find in the course of your analysis, in one paragraph you should narrowly define what aspect of the text you will examine and how that aspect might prove enlightening to the concept of truth. Some sample topics include:
- How the characters of Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth in an episode of the Fox crime drama “Bones” represent competing methods for truth-finding, the scientific method and instinctive knowing.
- How the Robert Frost poem “Mending Wall” acknowledges the truth of the expression “Good fences make good neighbors” while also asking why it is so.
- How an article from Wikipedia.org offers a democratized or qualified notion of truth because it can be edited by anyone with an account.
- How the surrealist cube-like minotaur in Picasso’s painting Guernica reveals the brutal truth of the Spanish Civil War.
You will post this proposal to your blog by 5pm June 2.
Literature Review due June 4th in hard copy.
To aid you in your analysis of your primary text, you should find up to two secondary sources in which you may engage in a meaningful way. As stated above, these may be scholarly or general sources but they should be expert and reputable. You might consider reference works, biographical information, critical or scholarly essays, or any other expert sources. We will conduct a library information and research session on June 2nd to assist you in locating sources. You should write a one page literature review summarizing and evaluating the sources and articulating how they will be useful to you in your eventual critical analysis. You will submit a hard copy of the draft of this literature review on June 4.
First Draft due June 9th in hard copy.
The first draft of the critical analysis will be due for draft workshop on June 9.
Final Draft due June 11th in hard copy.
The final draft will be due at the beginning of class on June 11.
