The World Has Already Ended: Apocalypse and Fiction
This was a new first-year seminar and the glumness of the content didn't prevent us from forming a supportive and cohesive little society (which is my main objective in a first-year seminar).
This was also my first experiment with ungrading, and I was really happy with it. I was inspired by lots of people on twitter, but most of all by Jesse Stommel. Here is my ungrading handout, and here are my final reflections on ungrading, which I emailed to my students at the end of the semester:
This was also my first experiment with ungrading, and I was really happy with it. I was inspired by lots of people on twitter, but most of all by Jesse Stommel. Here is my ungrading handout, and here are my final reflections on ungrading, which I emailed to my students at the end of the semester:
My “no grades” policy has an ambivalent relationship to my desire to acclimate you to college norms. Obviously, in every other college class you will receive grades, so I’m not acclimating you to that reality. But in college, there is an expectation that you find intrinsic motivation for the work you do. In contrast, grades provide you with extrinsic motivation: I work hard so I can get a good grade. Without grades, you have to find other motivation for working hard. What will it be? What happens when you work hard not because a teacher told you to, but because you want to discover something? That is the question at the core of my experiment.
As one of you said, discussions are more interesting when you’re not simply saying things that you think will please me. It really bums me out to be a force in the room that dictates discussion in this way.
I’m not sure how I should approach the no-grades policy if I do it again in the future. Some professors who do the no-grades thing have a grade scale in their heads. In midterm evals, they ask students to assign themselves a grade, and if that grade is not in line with the professor’s grade scale, the professor adjusts the student’s expectations. This feels half-hearted to me. My real desire is to say, basically, I’m done with grades, and to have no secret grade scale in my head that I try to make you guess. I don’t know.
People have been imagining the end of the world in endless variety for a long time. Why? This course traces an alternative history of the new millennium by focusing on recent fiction about the apocalypse and its aftermath. What does apocalyptic fiction tell us about the ability of individual humans to persevere and effect change? Where do we draw the line between science fiction and realism when reality feels like a sci-fi novel? What role do gender and race play in novels that imagine the indiscriminate erasure of entire populations?
WRITTEN WORK
Assignment 1: Biography of an object
As you finish The Road, identify an object that seems key. This “object” can be anything from a trinket to an ocean – so part of the assignment is to think broadly about what might constitute a key object in this novel.
Once you have identified your object, you will write the biography of its life in the novel, in about 3-4 pages. Like other biographies, this one should take the form of narrative prose. You’ll need to capture the character of the image—what’s it like, who does it hang out with, who and what is it related to—as well as the way it changes over time. Most importantly, you’ll need to demonstrate why that object is important. (Biographies don’t get written about unimportant people or things.)
Assignment 2: Scene translation
Choose one paragraph from The Handmaid’s Tale and translate it into another medium. Then, write a 500 word essay in which you reflect on why you made the decisions you did – and what those decisions told you about the medium of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Assignment 3: Persuasive essay
Write a five-page argument-driven essay about The Handmaid’s Tale and The Water Knife.
I hesitate to call this a compare/contrast essay because I don’t want you to simply compare these two novels, describing their similarities and their differences. I want you to use one novel as a lens for understanding the other. In other words, the point of this essay is to understand one novel better by placing it in a larger context, a context you create by analyzing the other novel.
In this approach, you will probably not give equal attention to both novels. This is ok. You are using your analysis of one novel (which you might discuss more briefly) in order to develop an argument about your main novel (which you analyze at greater length).
Assignment 4: Manifesto
Write a manifesto of 400-600 words in which you strenuously argue for a behavior or worldview that would improve a corner of the world you care about.
As I said in class, a manifesto is written from a position of passion and expertise. You need to advocate for a behavior or worldview that you can research objectively. This behavior or worldview also needs to be something you inspires your zeal and enthusiasm.
Your manifesto must integrate evidence you discovered as you researched your topic. You must use 3-5 quality sources (at least 2 of which should be peer-reviewed).
A scholar would quote or paraphrase an expert and cite her in a footnote. You will do something different. You will integrate your evidence seamlessly into your manifesto—no quotations, no citations. Write passionately from the position of expertise you’ve created by researching your topic.
An annotated bibliography and process letter are due 11/26. Your research should be complete by this date. Your annotated bibliography should list 3-5 sources (at least 2 of them peer-reviewed). Beneath each source, write what expertise you gained from it. (Bullet points are fine as long as they give sufficient context.) Your process letter (one page, double spaced) should experiment with what you might want to argue for, and how your research might help you in this argument. It should also detail any problems you foresee. I will give you feedback over email.
In a reflection letter, due with the manifesto, you will explore the relationship between what you learned and what you were able to argue. Tell the story of how your passion and expertise intertwined. Include a bibliography (MLA format—consult the Purdue OWL for specifics) with your manifesto.
[On the last day of class, we read aloud our manifestos. I was so impressed by my students' work and their bravery in sharing it. (I also wrote a manifesto and read it aloud and it was terrifying.)]
READINGS
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
"Children of Men," Alfonso Cuarón (2006)
The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel
WRITTEN WORK
Assignment 1: Biography of an object
As you finish The Road, identify an object that seems key. This “object” can be anything from a trinket to an ocean – so part of the assignment is to think broadly about what might constitute a key object in this novel.
Once you have identified your object, you will write the biography of its life in the novel, in about 3-4 pages. Like other biographies, this one should take the form of narrative prose. You’ll need to capture the character of the image—what’s it like, who does it hang out with, who and what is it related to—as well as the way it changes over time. Most importantly, you’ll need to demonstrate why that object is important. (Biographies don’t get written about unimportant people or things.)
Assignment 2: Scene translation
Choose one paragraph from The Handmaid’s Tale and translate it into another medium. Then, write a 500 word essay in which you reflect on why you made the decisions you did – and what those decisions told you about the medium of The Handmaid’s Tale.
- Pick a paragraph from The Handmaid’s Tale. This is your source text. Its medium is the novel.
- Pick a destination medium. It can be video, text message, Twitter, Facebook, poetry (in any form, rhymed or free, etc.), drama, painting, sculpture, etc. It must only be different from the one you started with, (i.e. your destination medium cannot be another novel).
- Now: translate! Your job is creatively but faithfully to recode the source text into a new, destination one, translating across media as you do so.
- What will result? What will be lost or gained in this translation? You need to tell us, in a short, 500 word essay. It should describe the process and difficulties (or ease) of doing this work. It should analytically focus on the different affordances of each medium – what it does well that others don’t. It should reflect on the medium specificity of each your source and destination medium. Feel free to use the first-person in writing this essay.
Assignment 3: Persuasive essay
Write a five-page argument-driven essay about The Handmaid’s Tale and The Water Knife.
I hesitate to call this a compare/contrast essay because I don’t want you to simply compare these two novels, describing their similarities and their differences. I want you to use one novel as a lens for understanding the other. In other words, the point of this essay is to understand one novel better by placing it in a larger context, a context you create by analyzing the other novel.
In this approach, you will probably not give equal attention to both novels. This is ok. You are using your analysis of one novel (which you might discuss more briefly) in order to develop an argument about your main novel (which you analyze at greater length).
Assignment 4: Manifesto
Write a manifesto of 400-600 words in which you strenuously argue for a behavior or worldview that would improve a corner of the world you care about.
As I said in class, a manifesto is written from a position of passion and expertise. You need to advocate for a behavior or worldview that you can research objectively. This behavior or worldview also needs to be something you inspires your zeal and enthusiasm.
Your manifesto must integrate evidence you discovered as you researched your topic. You must use 3-5 quality sources (at least 2 of which should be peer-reviewed).
A scholar would quote or paraphrase an expert and cite her in a footnote. You will do something different. You will integrate your evidence seamlessly into your manifesto—no quotations, no citations. Write passionately from the position of expertise you’ve created by researching your topic.
An annotated bibliography and process letter are due 11/26. Your research should be complete by this date. Your annotated bibliography should list 3-5 sources (at least 2 of them peer-reviewed). Beneath each source, write what expertise you gained from it. (Bullet points are fine as long as they give sufficient context.) Your process letter (one page, double spaced) should experiment with what you might want to argue for, and how your research might help you in this argument. It should also detail any problems you foresee. I will give you feedback over email.
In a reflection letter, due with the manifesto, you will explore the relationship between what you learned and what you were able to argue. Tell the story of how your passion and expertise intertwined. Include a bibliography (MLA format—consult the Purdue OWL for specifics) with your manifesto.
[On the last day of class, we read aloud our manifestos. I was so impressed by my students' work and their bravery in sharing it. (I also wrote a manifesto and read it aloud and it was terrifying.)]
READINGS
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
"Children of Men," Alfonso Cuarón (2006)
The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel