Tuesday, December 20, 2011

An External Work of Definition, Moving to Classification

It has been a while since this blog updated, and I suppose I will need to do more with it in the new term.  For now, though, a link and some commentary.

The link is to Christina H.'s Cracked.com article, "5 Reasons Calling Someone a 'Nerd' Is Officially Meaningless," published 20 December 2011.  In the article, Christina H. argues that the old label of "nerd," particularly defined as an intelligent social outcast who focuses overly narrowly and deeply upon an unusual field of interest, is no longer applicable.  She systematically overthrows many of the old components of the definition, highlighting their historical contexts and explicating how they do not apply anymore.  The article, being an online piece, is replete with links to referenced materials, helping the author to establish her veracity, and the combination of the adequate use of outside source materials and humor make for an effective article.*

I point the piece out because I find that it does represent an example of several things I wish to highlight in my classes.  First, Christina H. does go through and underpin the traditional understandings and definitions with which she works, finding a number of examples which support her claims and highlighting how they do so.  She also points out how those definitions fail to apply to many to whom the label "nerd" is often applied at present, so that she carries out classification according to the second option of my classification paper assignments in my first-year composition classes.  In doing both, she provides an example of how the specific tasks to which I assign my students can and do show in in the "real world" as well as how the work called for in my classes need not be stilted and boring, but can be engaging and entertaining.

It is an important lesson, I think.

*I am aware that the author of the article references Wikipedia, which I advise against in my students' academic and professional work.  The issue here is one of context.  Cracked.com advertises itself as "America's Only Humor Site Since 1958," so that it immediately marks itself as something other than a major academic resource; the label as a "Humor Site" calls for regard as such, and the "Since 1958," a year that far predates the Internet, reinforces the idea by means of comic exaggeration.  This is far different from the sober academic or technical prose that my classes call for my students to use; Cracked.com has the purpose of entertainment, and while that purpose necessarily requires that there be some informative work done, it lessens the obligation for scholarly rigor.  That obligation is quite strong for my students, since I seek to train them with an eye towards scholarship; it is easier to pull back than to push forward.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Sample Longer Paper

Students, below appears an example of how to expand your own shorter papers into the six- to eight-page longer paper that the course requires. In this example, which is the bare minimum allowable length for your own papers, I work from my earlier option 1 classification paper. The material that I bring straight over from it appears in white. The added counter-argument appears in red. The rebuttal is in green. New material supporting my thesis is in blue. Sources for each are in the Works Cited according to the color of what they support (the source for the counter-argument is red, for example).

Please note that in your own papers, you are not to color-code; I do so in the example as a teaching device, showing you how the parts fit together. Please note also that, as with the earlier paper, the topic of the example is not one you may use.


Also, I am well aware that I give Le Morte d'Arthur where the source I reference gives Le Mort d'Arthur. The spelling of the title varies from edition to edition, and I use the one with which I am most familiar.

The anti-hero can be defined as a character who achieves heroic ends by carrying out actions that are themselves generally considered evil; they attain fair ends by foul means. Typically, the Arthurian knight Sir Gawain is not lumped in with such figures as stand to define the anti-hero type. A close examination of his attributes, however, reveals that he very much fits the model.

For him to fit the model, however, necessitates that the model is correctly formed, and there is not agreement that this is the case.  Indeed, scholars disagree on the nature of the anti-hero.  For instance, in the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, J.A. Cuddon defines the anti-hero as "A 'non-hero', or the antithesis of a hero of the old-fashioned kind who was capable of heroic deeds, who was dashing, strong, brave, and resourceful" [sic] (42-43), a definition which would seem to belie the contention that the anti-hero attains fair ends by foul means.  Similarly, Chris Baldick, writing for the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, defines the anti-hero as "A central character in a dramatic or narrative work who lacks the qualities of nobility and magnanimity expected of traditional heroes and heroines in romances and epics."  Both sources speak to a disagreement with the idea of the anti-hero as performing heroic deeds by means of evil actions, and to a prevailing scholarly disagreement as to the nature of the anti-hero, generally.

That the two sources disagree and thereby suggest a lack of scholarly consensus, however, has problematic implications.  Both sources are reputable and are therefore likely the result of sound study.  The two, insofar as they disagree, cannot both be correct; if one of them is right, the other cannot be, since they differ.  That one of them must be wrong, despite being reputable, raises the possibility that both are wrong; if one of the two reputable sources can be in error, then the other might be, as well.  More problematic, however, is that both definitions attempt to say what an anti-hero is by discussing what it is not.  While it is helpful to do some work in defining by negation, as it allows for a restriction of examination to a reasonable extent rather than the wide-open field of inquiry that otherwise exists, not all definition can be done by negation.  The antithesis of a hero can be a villain as surely as an anti-hero, so that Cuddon's definition is incomplete.  Also, central epic characters such as inform Baldick's definition can be noble yet far from heroic, as Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost attests.  Cuddon's definition is too narrow, and Baldick's too broad, to be accurate.  Room exists, therefore, for another view of the anti-hero, and for judgments based upon that view.

As a knight of the Round Table, the highest order of traditional chivalry in English-language literature, and a close kinsman of King Arthur, the legendary paragon of royal virtues, Sir Gawain would be expected to be a fairly common sort of hero. A common image of the Arthurian knight is one of an ennobled warrior riding a white horse while wearing shining armor.   The knight is almost always a man--only in Spenser's Faerie Queene does an active female knight appear in a traditional English-language Arthurian context.  He is seen rescuing maidens from unjust captivity and battling against evil creatures given to laying waste to the peaceful countryside and its population of simple farmers who would otherwise sing merrily as they go about their honest work of tilling fields and husbanding livestock.  Sir Lancelot is often regarded as the exemplar of the type, although he is not as good an example in the standard text of English-language Arthurian legend, Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, as is often perceived.  The knights who achieve the Holy Grail in Malory's text--Sir Bors, Sir Percival, and most especially Sir Galahad--are better representatives.  Bors fights for right despite the sure knowledge of his peers' condemnation for his doing so (2.324).  Galahad is in fact so pure an example of noble knighthood that he is translated directly to heaven (2.314).  Both typify the common conception of Arthurian chivalric conduct.

Sir Gawain falls far short of that standard.  Even in a major work which centers on Gawain, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which he could be expected to show up as a pure example of heroism, he ends up coming off as committing less-than-good acts.  In the work, Gawain enters into a wager with Sir BertilakBertilak; she threatens to trap him in bed on the first day and on the second, she kisses him while he is still abed (ll. 1211-25, 1504-07).  Gawain makes his trades to Bertilak, gaining in exchange an abundance of venison on the first day (ll. 1372-82).  On the second day, his trade gains him the meat of a boar hunted at great personal risk; even an average boar is more than capable of disemboweling a person in short order, and it "was massive and broad, greatest of all boars, / ... / For three men in one rush he threw on their backs" before maiming several hunting dogs and charging at the hunting party as he shrugs off volleys of arrows (ll. 1439-67); Gawain gains a dearly-bought prize.  On the third day, however, Gawain betrays his vow, keeping from Bertilak an enchanted belt or sash he receives from Lady Bertilak (ll. 1679-1947).  The lie is bad.  That the lie takes the form of contravening hospitality oaths is far worse, violating an ancient and widely-respected code--and that it comes after Gawain has gained so much from it only compounds the ill.  That it occurs over the receipt of a gift given in bed by another man's wife is perhaps worst of all.  That Gawain does so marks him as enacting evil.

He does worse yet.  In Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Gawain errs gravely in his first mission as a knight in Arthur's service. He moves to slay a knight who was attempting to yield himself, actively denying the plea despite the fact that "a Knight that is without mercy, is without worship [sic]"; he intemperately kills the knight's lady, instead, as he is unable to check his sword-swing when she throws herself over her knight in an attempt to protect him--"he smote off her head by misadventure" (Malory 1.119). In failing to show mercy to a foe who had conceded defeat, and in failing to control his martial abilities, particularly as they befell a noblewoman, Gawain violates the Round Table Oath to which all those of the high chivalric order were sworn not just at their induction, but annually (1.134). Violating one's sworn oath is, again, generally regarded as an action good people do not perform; even worse yet is killing those who have yielded or who are not in a position to defend themselves. Gawain's commission of both acts is marked as evil.

So, too, is an action taken late in his chivalric career.  After Arthur, responding to a papal command, seeks to reconcile himself with Lancelot, Gawain intervenes, declaring blood feud against Lancelot (3.417).  It skirts the commands of the Vicar of Christ, which comes perilously close to the active commission of evil.  That he shortly refuses Lancelot's offer of penance takes it even closer--certainly, it smacks of the kind of harshness commonly associated with villains.  That he compels Arthur to join him in his feud, shattering the fellowship of the Round Table as he does so and setting up the potential for a coup against Arthur in which Camelot is overthrown makes his feud very much a venue for evil (3.422).  Thus, Gawain situates himself as enacting evil, helping him to qualify as an anti-hero despite the initial impression of him as a wholly noble Arthurian knight.
Even so, Gawain is able to come to fair resolution.  In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, after his perfidy with Bertilak, Gawain faces the Green Knight, whom he had earlier attacked as part of a wager in Arthur's court (ll. 381-456).  In facing the Green Knight, Gawain knows that he is putting his own head under the axe:
He bent his neck and bowed,
Showing his flesh all bare,
And seeming unafraid;
He would not shrink in fear. (ll. 2255-2258)
That Gawain works to fulfill a vow despite the deep-rooted belief that doing so will cost him his head speaks well in his favor.  So, too, does the valorization offered him by Arthur and Arthur's other knights, that they mimic his dress with a green belt, "And whoever afterwards wore it was always honoured" (l. 2520).  Enjoying the renown of the Round Table can easily be regarded as a fair end, and Gawain comes to it through less-than-honorable means, situating him as an anti-hero.

Sir Gawain does manage to meet his end well. When his brothers, Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris, are killed by Sir Lancelot as he rescues Queen Guinevere from being burned at the stake, Gawain vows vengeance upon him (Malory 3.406). Given the dictates of the warrior culture in which all four lived, it is a wholly appropriate response, the more so because Gawain is the eldest brother and therefore the patriarch of the Orkney royal household; Gawain's actions thus read as well performed. He does eventually have the opportunity to attempt that vengeance, and fights an extravagant, pitched battle against Sir Lancelot, receiving a head-wound in the process (3.426-30).  Any battle with Lancelot is a perilous situation, given Lancelot's long history of inflicting grievously fatal injury upon his opponents (see 3.379-80 for an example; Lancelot splits Meliagraunce's head open while one hand is literally tied behind his back), so that Gawain's entry into it speaks to his innate heroism.  Complications from that injury lead to Gawain's death. On his death-bed, though, he forgives his recent foeman, absolving him of guilt for his death; "I Sir Gawain, Knight of the Round Table, sought my death, and not through thy deserving, but it was mine own seeking." He recalls the greater good of Arthur's realm above his own personal vendetta; "come over the sea in all the haste that thou mayest, with thy noble Knights, and rescue my noble King that made thee Knight, that is my lord and uncle, King Arthur." He even refers to Lancelot as "Flower of all noble Knights that ever I heard or saw in my days," which is high praise (3.435). Gawain dies as a result of performing his duties, which is admirable, and he forgives his enemies as he dies, which is the mark of a particularly noble soul. He ends his life in line with the promise of his chivalric calling. He passes on as a hero.  And that he does so after engaging in such foul deeds as that with which he begins his chivalric career firmly establishes him as an anti-hero.

That the Arthurian Sir Gawain functions as an anti-hero becomes obvious upon consideration of his knightly career. Since Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Le Morte d'Arthur occupy positions of singular importance in English-language Arthurian legend, serving as the key example of medieval romance and the primary reference text for Anglophone Arthurianatheir portrayals of the knights of the Round Table and their deeds underpin much other writing in the English language and indeed of productions in other media. The anti-hero that figures so prominently in many of them is thereby shown to have much older iterations than is commonly realized, showing that what goes on now is very much of a piece with what has gone on for a long, long time. It illustrates that our past can yet teach us much about our present selves.

Works Cited
~Baldick, Chris. "Anti-hero." Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford UP, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford UP, 2011. Web. 14 November 2011.
~Cuddon, J.A. "Anti-hero." Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. 4th ed. Rev. C.E. Preston. New York: Penguin, 1999. Print.
~Malory, Thomas. La Mort D’Arthur. Ed. Joseph Haslewood. 3 vols. London: R. Wilks, 1816. Print.
~Milton, John. Paradise Lost. 2nd ed. Ed. Scott Elledge. New York: Norton, 1993. Print.
~Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Ed. and trans. James Winny. Orchard Park, NY: Broadview P, 2005. Print.
~Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. Edmund Spenser's Poetry. 3rd ed. Comps. and eds. Hugh Maclean and Anne Lake Prescott. New York: Norton, 1993. Print.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Sample Contrast Paper

Students, please find below a sample of a contrast paper, as discussed here.  As with earlier papers, please keep in mind that this is a draft and therefore likely could stand to be improved upon.  Also, keep in mind that when it is formatted for submission, as indicated here, it is at the higher end of acceptable paper length.

Unlike earlier examples of contrast papers I have posted, this example follows what the course textbook describes as the block pattern.

The anti-hero can be defined as a character who achieves heroic ends by carrying out actions that are themselves generally considered evil; they attain fair ends by foul means.  Both Wolverine, as depicted in Ultimate X-Men, and Hida Kisada of the Legend of the Five Rings roleplaying game can be regarded as anti-heroes.  Of the two, Hida Kisada is the superior example of the type.

That Wolverine of the Ultimate X-Men series of graphic novels is an iteration of the anti-hero is fairly obvious.  Certainly the "hero" part is widely acknowledged.  The fact that he is regarded as part of the heroic X-Men speaks to his heroic status.  There are other factors in his heroism, as well.  In Ultimate War, it is remarked that Wolverine had served with Allied forces in World War II.  As the Allies were allied against the clearly-evil Nazis, they must be regarded as protagonists, and so Wolverine's service to those powers casts him as a hero--and one of the "Greatest Generation."  In Absolute Power, Wolverine works to end the manufacture and distribution of a drug that has horrific effects on those who use it.  Acting to limit the contact people have with a dangerous substance, even at personal risk (Wolverine loses a leg at one point and is subjected to the immediate effects of a large chemical explosion in the course of eliminating the substance), is typically regarded as a helpful act of bravery--in brief, the act of a hero.  That Wolverine performs the act helps identify him as a hero.

He is also clearly given to evil actions.  When he is introduced in the Ultimate X-Men series, it is as a highly-ranked agent in the service of Magneto, the series' main antagonist.  That he is in such service (which takes the form of double-agency, with its overtones of necessarily evil betrayal) indicates early on that he is party to evil deeds, an indication reinforced by the initial graphic representation of Wolverine with hands still bloodied form killing a large reptile in close combat.  Soon after, he is described as "the most dangerous killer in the world," which is hardly a pleasant image.  Later in the series, in Return of the King, he leaves one of his comrades-in-arms for dead, not because of tactical necessity (which is suspect at best), but to eliminate him as a rival for the sexual attentions (not love, just carnal pleasure) of a young woman significantly his junior.  That the action takes place at all casts Wolverine's morality into doubt.  That it takes place to secure sexual favors clearly condemns him.  That it secures those favors from a decades-younger person--one who is, in fact, still a teenager--further blackens Wolverine's character, affirming the evil actions from which Wolverine goes on to carry out heroic deeds.  He is a solid example of an anti-hero.

Even so, Wolverine is not as prominent an example of an anti-hero as is Hida Kisada.  Certainly, Kisada's heroism is more pronounced than is Wolverine's.  As the Champion of the Crab Clan, Kisada occupies a key position in the defense of his homeland against actual demonic hordes.  In Way of the Crab, it is remarked that "Since the coming of Shinsei [a major religious event], the Crab have defended Rokugan's southern border against the unholy forces of Fu Leng [the Satan-analog of the game]," and Kisada is the linchpin of that defense (8).  This clearly marks him as a heroic figure, one whose every deed works to save the very souls of his countryfolk.  Even more pronounced a mark of his heroism, however, is his posthumous elevation to godhood.  The Vacant Throne notes that he "lived for two years with a wound that would have killed any other man instantly, and upon his death was declared the Fortune of Persistence," elevating him to the status of a minor deity as a reward for his aid in defeating Fu Leng (124).  Returning to mortal life for a time, he fought against a massively powerful evil sorcerer and died only after slaying "nearly two dozen of his attackers" in his last battle (124).  Upon his second death, he returned to his status as a minor god, clearly achieving a noble end to another life.  He far exceeds Wolverine's heroism in doing so, for the X-Man falls far short of either defeating or attaining godhood as Kisada does.

Kisada takes a dark road to reach his brilliant end, however.  Although he is sworn to fight against the forces of the underworld, he makes alliance with them during the uncertainties of civil war (Wulf, Carman, and Mason 8).  That he betrays his duty is an evil act whose evil is compounded by his alliance with literally demonic forces.  The evilness is further marked by Kisada's actions towards his own children in the name of that alliance.  The younger of his sons "is sacrificed and placed upon the Terrible Standard of Fu Leng," and the elder "is forced to lend his name to an oni," binding his soul to a demon from the darkest pits of hell (33).  It cannot be called good when a person slays one son and parades his body as a war-banner while selling the soul of the other son to a devil.  Although it is certain that Wolverine commits evil deeds, his failings are as nothing compared to the depravity in which Kisada indulges.  Because Hida Kisada exceeds Wolverine both in his degree of heroism and in the degree of evil he enacts before coming to that heroism, he stands as a superior example of an anti-hero.

That the lesser-known of the two characters is a clearer example of a character type than the better-known suggest that more widely disseminated ideas become less pronounced as they reach a larger audience.  If the suggestion is accurate--and it will take more study to verify or deny it--it will have some decidedly negative implications for mass media.

Works Cited
~Carman, Shawn, et al. The Vacant Throne. Alderac Entertainment Group, n.d. Print.
~Coleite, Aron E. Absolute Power. Ultimate X-Men 19. N. pag. New York: Marvel, 2008. Print.
~Millar, Mark. Return of the King. Ultimate X-Men 6. N. pag. New York: Marvel, 2005.
~---. Ultimate War. Ultimate X-Men 5. N. pag. New York: Marvel, 2005. Print.
~---. Ultimate X-Men 1.  N. pag. New York: Marvel, 2003. Print.
~Vaux, Rob. The Way of the Crab. Five Rings Publishing, 1999. Print.
~Wulf, Rich, Shawn Carman, and Seth Mason. Time of the Void. Alderac Entertainment Group, 2001. Print.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Sample Classification Paper, Option 2

Below appears an example of a classification paper, second option, as discussed here. It treats a type of hero that is forbidden from consideration in student papers, so that it can serve as a model while not actually doing the students' work for them. Please note both that it is an early draft, and so can stand to be improved, and that it is a good length for student papers, when formatted according to stated submission guidelines here.

The anti-hero can be defined as a character who achieves heroic ends by carrying out actions that are themselves generally considered evil; they attain fair ends by foul means.  On first glance, Fëanor from Tolkien's Silmarillion appears to fit the definition.  In truth, he does not; he is not actually an anti-hero.

The misidentification of Fëanor as an anti-hero is unsurprising; the "hero" part of the term certainly seems easy enough to perceive at first.  He is born into a position of privilege, certainly, as the eldest son of the lord of one of the three major branches of the Elvish people (Silmarillion 67).  That position, the eldest son of a mighty ruler, is one usually reserved for heroes, as are the levels of skill and resolution that are attributed to him.  To illustrate, Tolkien calls him "of all the Noldor [the second of the great groups of Elf-kind], then or after, the most subtle in mind and the most skilled in hand" and notes that "Few ever changed his courses by counsel, none by force" (68); both descriptions portray Fëanor as exceptional in the ways that heroes are usually exceptional.  Also, his masterworks, the Silmarils, give their name to the text in which Fëanor himself is described in detail (27); that they do so seems to position Fëanor as the pivotal figure of the text, a position typically occupied by a hero.

Fëanor additionally operates by foul means, so that he appears to fulfill the "anti" portion of the term "anti-hero."  He draws a sword against his half-brother in the house of his father, threatening to kill him (76); the offer of kin-slaying is an offer of ancient evil widely recognized as being such.  That Fëanor makes such an offer is clearly an immoral act.  That he comes to be a kin-slayer only intensifies his foul-acting nature; in pursuing a single-minded course of action, Fëanor leads his people in the slaughter of other Elves, to which some of them are akin (97-98).  Leading people into iniquity is hardly a fair action, so that for Fëanor to perform it clearly situates him as undertaking an evil action.  The multiple sentences of exile which are imposed upon Fëanor serve a similar function (77, 95); being twice cast out from one's birthplace and, indeed, from a paradisaical realm are easily recognizable effects of evil actions, so that the eldest son of the lord of the Noldor is marked as having done evil by being made to suffer exile.

How Fëanor fails to fulfill the role of anti-hero is that he does not achieve a fair end; despite the initial promise of heroism attached to him, he dies in failure and disgrace.  That death comes as the result of a rash attempt to too-quickly fulfill a hastily sworn and poorly conceived oath.  Fëanor is, at one point before his second and final exile, summoned to the capital city of the paradisaical realm in which he was born; when he answers the summons, he leaves his masterworks, the Silmarils, behind in the place where he dwelled in his exile (83).  While he is in the capital city, the Satan-figure in Tolkien's work, Melkor/Morgoth, assails the exile-dwelling, slaying Fëanor's father and stealing the Silmarils as he does so (87-88).  In grief at the loss of his works and of his father, Fëanor and his seven sons swear to pursue with unending hatred those who would keep the Silmarils from them, whatever power or purpose should guide them (93).  Vows made in grief are not less binding, although they are usually less well planned, given the disruption of rational thought that deep sadness tends to create.  The oath Fëanor and his sons swear, then, is a bad idea to begin with; it is made worse in that it is cited as the reason for the second exile (95).

Following the fallacious vow, Fëanor leads his people into Middle-earth.  There, they are soon beset by the forces of Melkor/Morgoth.  Although they are outnumbered, however, they manage to defeat the armies sent against them, which would bode well for Fëanor but for his own continuing folly; "Fëanor, in his wrath against the Enemy [Melkor/Morgoth], would not halt [in pursuing the retreating forces], but pressed on" (124).  It is good tactics to pursue a retreating opponent when the reinforcements and fortifications toward which the retreat is headed are known and sufficient force is on hand to deal with them.  This was not the case for Fëanor, however; "he drew far ahead of the van of his host; and seeing this the servants of Morgoth turned to bay, and there issued from Angband [the enemy fortress] Balrogs [demons of fire and darkness] to aid them" (124).  The son of the lord of the Noldor is struck down in what should have been the moment of his victory, the victim twice-over of his own recklessness.  It is not a heroic end, and so the evils that Fëanor commits are not redeemed through final heroism.  Consequently, Fëanor is not an anti-hero.

There is a danger in being too eager to apply labels based on superficial readings.  In works of literature, doing so leads to failed understandings of texts.  In other works of art, doing so leads to other misunderstandings.  In real life, doing so promotes destructive stereotypes and ethnocentrism.  More attention to specific details is needed so as to prevent negative effects, which is as important as developing positive ones.
Work Cited
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982. Print.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Sample Classification Paper, Option 1

Below appears an example of a classification paper, first option, as discussed here.  It treats a type of hero that is forbidden from consideration in student papers, so that it can serve as a model while not actually doing the students' work for them.  Please note both that it is an early draft, and so can stand to be improved, and that it is on the short end of acceptable length for student papers, when formatted according to stated submission guidelines here.

Also, I am well aware that I give Le Morte d'Arthur where the source I reference gives Le Mort d'Arthur.  The spelling of the title varies from edition to edition, as is evident here, and I use the one with which I am most familiar.

The anti-hero can be defined as a character who achieves heroic ends by carrying out actions that are themselves generally considered evil; they attain fair ends by foul means.  Typically, the Arthurian knight Sir Gawain is not lumped in with such figures as stand to define the anti-hero type.  A close examination of his attributes, however, reveals that he very much fits the model.

As a knight of the Round Table, the highest order of traditional chivalry in English-language literature, and a close kinsman of King Arthur, the legendary paragon of royal virtues, Sir Gawain would be expected to be a fairly common sort of hero.  A common image of the Arthurian knight is one of an ennobled warrior riding a white horse while wearing shining armor.  He (and it is almost always a he) is seen rescuing maidens from unjust captivity and battling against evil creatures given to laying waste to the peaceful countryside and its population of simple farmers who would otherwise sing merrily as they go about their honest work of tilling fields and husbanding livestock.

Sir Gawain falls short of that standard.  For example, in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, the standard text of English-language Arthurian legend, Gawain errs gravely in his first mission as a knight in Arthur's service.  He moves to slay a knight who was attempting to yield himself, actively denying the plea despite the fact that "a Knight that is without mercy, is without worship [sic]"; he intemperately kills the knight's lady, instead, as he is unable to check his sword-swing when she throws herself over her knight in an attempt to protect him--"he smote off her head by misadventure" (Malory 1.119).  In failing to show mercy to a foe who had conceded defeat, and in failing to control his martial abilities, particularly as they befell a noblewoman, Gawain violates the Round Table Oath to which all those of the high chivalric order were sworn not just at their induction, but annually (1.134).  Violating one's sworn oath is generally regarded as an action good people do not perform; neither is killing those who have yielded or who are not in a position to defend themselves.  Gawain's commission of both acts is marked as evil.

Even so, Sir Gawain does manage to meet his end well.  When his brothers, Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris, are killed by Sir Lancelot as he rescues Queen Guinevere from being burned at the stake, Gawain vows vengeance upon him (3.312).  Given the dictates of the warrior culture in which all four lived, it is a wholly appropriate response, the more so because Gawain is the eldest brother and therefore the patriarch of the Orkney royal household; Gawain's actions thus read as well performed.  He does eventually have the opportunity to attempt that vengeance, and fights against Sir Lancelot, receiving a head-wound in the process.  Complications from that injury lead to Gawain's death.  On his death-bed, though, he forgives his recent foeman, absolving him of guilt for his death; "I Sir Gawain, Knight of the Round Table, sought my death, and not through thy deserving, but it was mine own seeking."  He recalls the greater good of Arthur's realm above his own personal vendetta; "come over the sea in all the haste that thou mayest, with thy noble Knights, and rescue my noble King that made thee Knight, that is my lord and uncle, King Arthur."  He even refers to Lancelot as "Flower of all noble Knights that ever I heard or saw in my days," which is high praise (3.350-52).  Gawain dies as a result of performing his duties, which is admirable, and he forgives his enemies as he dies, which is the mark of a particularly noble soul.  He ends his life in line with the promise of his chivalric calling.  He passes on as a hero.

That the Arthurian Sir Gawain functions as an anti-hero becomes obvious upon consideration of his knightly career in Malory's depiction.  Since Le Morte d'Arthur occupies a position of singular importance in English-language Arthurian legend, serving as the primary reference text for it, its portrayals of the knights of the Round Table and their deeds underpin much other writing in the English language and indeed of productions in other media.  The anti-hero that figures so prominently in many of them is thereby shown to have much older iterations than is commonly realized, showing that what goes on now is very much of a piece with what has gone on for a long, long time.  It illustrates that our past can yet teach us much about our present selves.

Work Cited
Malory, Thomas. La Mort D’Arthur. Ed. Joseph Haslewood. 3 vols. London: R. Wilks, 1816. Print.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Sample Summary

What appears below is excerpted  and slightly adapted from another blog I maintain.

Tamar Lewin's September 12, 2011, article "Student Loan Default Rates Rise Sharply in Past Year" appeared in the online New York Times.  In the article, Lewin notes that there have been larger numbers of students failing to make their required student loan repayments, particularly at for-profit colleges, which largely serve low-income students and are the fastest-growing portion of the college population. Lewin makes mention of gainful employment regulations and of the ability of students to opt for income-based repayment plans, which does ameliorate the depressing tone of the article and makes it a bit more effective a piece of reporting.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

The Fall 2011 Term Begins

Today, the Fall 2011 term began at the technical college where I work.  My teaching schedule is not quite what I had expected, but it is a good one, and I am eager to begin upon it.

I find that this time, I do not have nearly so much of the nervousness that I have in past terms had at getting new sets of students to work with.  Part of this, I think, is my increasing familiarity with the job and its demands; this is my eighth term at the technical college, the fourth as a full-time instructor, and my fifth year of teaching at the college level, generally.  I am still young in the career, but I am not an untutored novice stepping into the front of the classroom for the first time.

Part also is that I have given much thought to the way in which I teach.  I am happy to work with students who are also willing to work, and I am not going to waste time with those students who are not.  Willingness to work has nothing to do with age, gender and orientation, racial/ethnic background, religious position, or socio-economic status, as I have long maintained.

No, what I do is offer guidance and direction to my students, showing them that the things I do can be done with enthusiasm and enjoyment--but that it is not easy to get to the point where they can be enjoyed.  Practice, practice, practice, and more practice, with evaluation and criticism of performance are needed to get to the point where attention to the niggling mechanics is no longer necessary and the greater questions of when and how to deploy techniques can be addressed.  In short, it takes a long time with the dull, repetitive work on fundamentals before sufficient competence can be achieved to have fun with things.  And it is boring to go over a basic concept again and again and again...but that does not make it unnecessary.

It is a tacit lesson underlying much of my teaching.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Sample Definition Paper

Below appears an example of a definition paper as discussed here.  It treats a type of hero that is forbidden from consideration in student papers, so that it can serve as a model while not actually doing the students' work for them.  Please note both that it is an early draft, and so can stand to be improved, and that it is on the short end of acceptable length for student papers, when formatted according to stated submission guidelines here.

One of the primary narratives, if not the primary narrative, is that in which a person overcomes substantial opposition to emerge into some position of greatness; that person is typically referred to as a hero.  Just as there are many stories, and many people to tell them, there are many types of hero; one that has become increasingly popular in the mainstream culture of the United States is the anti-hero.  Such characters as Túrin Turambar and Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever do fulfill such traditionally heroic functions as being the focus of the texts in which they appear and triumphing over significant opposition to come to greatness.  They do so, however, by way of carrying out actions that are in themselves evil; that accomplishment of fair ends by foul means typifies the anti-hero.

Túrin Turambar, for example, initially appears as a conventional hero.  As J.R.R. Tolkien puts it in The Silmarillion, the young Túrin is a son of all three of the great houses of humankind in the earliest days (381-82), which marks him as a focal character in the dynastic conflicts that appear throughout the text.  Specifically, Túrin is the son of Húrin, "the mightiest of the warriors of mortal Men" (286), so that he comes from the kind of ennobled pedigree often associated in stories with heroism.  And he does rise up to that standard, vowing to fight solely against those bound in service to the evil powers of the world (245).  He even slays a dragon, and indeed the first of dragons (273-75), a deed archetypally heroic.

As he acts the hero, though, he also does much that usually calls for a hero to kill the doer.  For one, he commits an assault at the dinner table of his foster-father, later running the person he assailed to death (244); neither is particularly heroic, and they spur him to live as an outlaw (244), which is also not commonly associated with high heroism.  Worse, he slays his long-time best friend (255).  Worst of all, he ends up marrying and impregnating his own sister (271, 275).  Neither killing one's own comrades nor committing incest is aligned with high ideals; rather, both are considered despicable acts worthy of execration.  Túrin evidently feels this, turning his blade upon himself to end his own life (278)--and suicide is not seldom considered an evil action.  Clearly, then, Túrin Turambar partakes of the evil, making him an anti-hero.

Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever is even clearer an example of an anti-hero than Túrin.  Certainly, he does stand in the focal place of a hero; the series of books in which he appears is named after him, which hardly indicates that he is an ancillary character.  And he does overcome significant opposition in the text.  For one, he is a leper, subject to a disease that threatens to rob him of all sensation (2-8); it is a catastrophic, destructive illness, so that all of his actions are themselves triumphs over it.  For another, he is presented with what he perceives as an impossible situation (38-44)--hence his title "the Unbeliever" (65); his perseverance in it is a surmounting of challenge.  And he does come to hold a position of importance; he is accepted as a member of the ruling body of the milieu in which he finds himself, treated as a messianic figure (257-59).  Clearly, then, Covenant is set up to take the part of a hero.

Even so, he is marked as evil.  Aside from his disease, which both traditionally and in the text is taken as a sign of abomination and reason to exclude him from the community (1-8), he is repeatedly described as closed to the forces of the milieu in which he finds himself (107, 257), and being closed-off is taken as a sign of malicious intent.  It is not entirely unjust; he is brought to the milieu at the behest of its version of Satan (32-37).  That evil power sends him with a message, so that Covenant functions as a servant of the devil, clearly an evil role.  Also, early in the text, Covenant rapes a sixteen-year-old girl who had previously offered him hospitality and medical care (90-92); not only is the host-guest relationship violated in this, which has long been a sin, a young woman is violated, which is inexcusably reprehensible.  It is manifest, then, that Covenant is far removed from the typically heroic, even though he comes to fill a number of its functions; he, too, is an anti-hero.

There are other examples that can be considered to aid in supporting a definition of an anti-hero as a character who accomplishes fair ends by foul means, not only within the literary genre in which Túrin and Covenant appear, but in other genres and other media.  That there are so many anti-heroes calls for an accurate assessment of what makes them fit into that type of (nominally) heroic character; having a fitting definition of the type is the first step in doing so.

Works Cited
Donaldson, Stephen R. Lord Foul's Bane. New York: Del Rey, 2004. Print.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982. Print.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Sample Longer Paper

Students, below appears an example of how to expand your own shorter papers into the six- to eight-page longer paper that the course requires.  In this example, which is the bare minimum allowable length for your own papers, I work from my earlier contrast paper.  The material that I bring straight over from it appears in white.  The added counter-argument appears in red.  The rebuttal is in green.  New material supporting my thesis is in blue.  Sources for each are in the Works Cited according to the color of what they support (the source for the counter-argument is red, for example).

Please note that in your own papers, you are not to color-code; I do so in the example as a teaching device, showing you how the parts fit together.  Please note also that, as with the earlier paper, the topic of the example is not one you may use.


An antagonist is anything that hinders or prevents a focal figure or focal figures from pursuing an end goal.  The household chores of doing laundry and of washing dishes both perform antagonistic functions.  Of the two, the more antagonistic is the dishwashing.

There are, admittedly, reasons to think it strange to call doing laundry and washing dishes antagonistic.  One is that having household chores to do necessitates that there is a household for which to do them, and it is certainly the case that having a household, a secure place in which to live and carry out personal and familial affairs, is an end-goal held by many.  The support of that goal would definitionally fail to be antagonistic, and since chores support that goal, they cannot be antagonistic.  Another is that household chores are honest work.  It has been held for quite some time and in several cultures that simple physical labor has a beneficial effect on those who do it.  For example, the Bhagavad-Gita reports that "Work is more excellent than idleness; / The body's life proceeds not, lacking work."  Similarly, comments about the life of St. Isidore speak to divine favor--the receipt of which is widely considered good--attending upon manual labor (World).  The idea, according to Bob Hoover, was even voiced in the inauguration of President Obama.  It becomes clear, then, that the notion of work as a good thing has substantial sanction.

Even so, "substantial sanction" is not the same thing as "total sanction" or even "prevailing sanction"; it would be folly to say that work such as washing clothes or dishes is considered good.  The contrary can, in fact, be amply demonstrated.  For instance, Mark Edmundson equates a desire to be a carpenter with "no real worldly ambitions" (57); trade labor is devalued in the equation, and household chores are not typically regarded as well as trade labor, so that to devalue trade labor necessarily also devalues household chores.  It is true that people seek to be valued, so that if household chores are devalued, those who perform them tend to be similarly devalued, and that devaluation would tend to inhibit a person's ability to pursue a specific goal, making it antagonistic.  Prevailing depictions of custodial and housekeeping staff tend to support the idea that cleaning up is not a good thing to have to do; it is oppositional to advancement, and so antagonistic.

That antagonism does manifest in doing laundry.  For example, for many in New York City and the surrounding urban sprawl, as well as in other major metropolitan areas, the chore requires an excursion to a laundry facility, which effectively prevents at-home relaxation; clothes must be gathered up and carried or carted down the street, or they must be thrown into a car and driven, both of which take time and take the laundry-doer out of the home.  As home is generally a desirable place to be, that which removes a person from home is typically antagonistic.

Even if a person lives in a building with its own laundry rooms, as is the case with many college dormitories and some apartment buildings (particularly those with higher rents and land-values), that person is obliged to remain with the laundry while it is being done, lest the clothes be stolen or thrown aside in favor of another person's wash.  In addition, then, to hindering many people's at-home relaxation--a goal common to a great many people and almost-universally regarded as a good thing--laundry day invites other persons to act as antagonists, thereby admitting the possibility of its own prevention.  This makes the task doubly antagonistic; it is a hindrance to the laundry-doer, and it inhibits others who face the task themselves, so that one load of laundry potentially serves to antagonize multiple people.

Further, laundry facilities are often expensive.  It is not uncommon for a single-load washer at a laundromat to require the insertion of a dollar to work.  It is also not uncommon for a single-load dryer to require a quarter of a dollar to work for ten minutes, and for it to take thirty minutes to dry a load of clothing, so that each load requires $1.75 to complete.  For someone who changes clothing completely each day, with a set of clothes being two undergarments, socks, pants or skirt, and shirt, one load of laundry is filled every other day, so that laundry costs some $3.50 every two days--in addition to the costs of detergent and fabric softener.  Meeting those costs has the effect of taking money away from being spent on more favored pursuits and thereby acting antagonistically financially.

For those who are fortunate enough to have washers and dryers in their homes, laundry is still antagonistic.  Because the machines are in the home, they intrude upon the home-dweller's awareness to a greater extent than does the laundromat walked by on the way to the bus stop or subway station.  That intrusion tends to inhibit enjoyment of other activities that take place in the home.  Since most such activities are regarded as desirable to undertake, that which inhibits them is antagonistic.

Also, the presence of machinery in the home opens up the possibility of mechanical malfunction in the home.  Specifically, washing machines can flood the rooms in which they sit, causing water damage to floors, walls, and other surrounding objects.  The flooding also opens up to possibility of electrical hazards, since washing machines tend to have electric motors which can short out and present electrocution hazards.  Dryers can cause fires; electric dryers can short out even as washing machines, producing sparks that can ignite flammable materials, and gas dryers always offer the potential for catastrophic gas leaks.  All are generally considered to be detrimental to the conduct of other household activities, and since those activities are typically desirable end goals, insofar as the equipment needed to do laundry inhibits them, the task is antagonistic.

Dishwashing is hardly an enjoyable task.  Since dishes become dirty primarily through use, and the use of dishes typically involves foodstuffs, dirty dishes are commonly festooned with unused food and drink.  Being largely organic, that food and drink begins to corrupt soon after it is set aside, and corrupting foodstuffs have an unfortunate tendency to stink.  Bad smells, particularly those associated with decay and corruption, are typically regarded as inhibiting enjoyment, and enjoyment is a prized end-goal of a great many people.  Washing dishes necessitates exposure to that unused food and the foul odors that soon begin to issue from it, so that it obliges the dishwasher to suffer bad smells, thereby inhibiting the dishwasher's enjoyment.  Since dishwashing tends to create a situation in which an end-goal is inhibited, it also tends to be antagonistic.

In addition, dishwashing exerts a number of physical ill-effects upon those who do it.  The aforementioned corrupting food also, as it is corrupting, invites the generation of disease and the presence of vermin such as flies, roaches, mice, and rats.  The diseases themselves, as well as those carried by the vermin, present clear hazards to human health; impaired health necessarily keeps people from doing all they would wish to do, thereby serving as an antagonist.  In addition, the vermin themselves tend to cause damage to the houses in which people live; since, as has already been noted, the home is a place of desired relaxation, it follows that damage to it restricts relaxation, thereby inhibiting the achievement of desire and serving once again as antagonist.

Also, dishwashing involves sticking one's hands into water through which one cannot see.  Knives, forks, graters, and the occasional broken glass appear among the dishes that are concealed by such water; each has sharp edges or points, and so sticking one's hands into it invites cuts, punctures, abrasions, and other injuries.  The injuries are possible even with the use of "protective" devices such as the dishwashing gloves sold at many grocery and retail stores; they are latex, and latex is easily pierced by metal or cut by sharpened steel or jagged-edged glass.  Indeed, many of the things that end up in the dishwater are specifically designed to cut, tear, pierce, or shave off things with much greater integrity than latex.  Such injuries tend to rupture the skin as well; knives and forks are designed at least in part to cut apart and poke into meat, which has at least as much strength as human flesh.  Injuries incurred by hidden pointy bits expose the dishwasher's blood to the potential diseases and vermin-waste in the dishwater--for bugs and mice excrete even as they eat, often onto the very things they seek to eat, and it is because they view it as food that they are drawn to corrupting materials.  Thus, in addition to the injuries themselves, there is an increased potential for infection of the dishwasher, with such antagonistic consequences as are noted above.

Even leaving aside such directly concrete instances of harm, washing dishes requires repetitive wrist motions.  Such repetition commonly results in carpal tunnel syndrome, as noted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, which notes in addition that carpal tunnel syndrome "can lead to numbness, tingling, weakness, or muscle damage in the hand and fingers" ("Carpal").  Each of these will prevent people from effectively performing any number of manual tasks.  Since many of the things that are enjoyed (such as playing video games, handling electronic devices, sports, cooking, eating, reading, and others) are done with the hands--and, as noted before, enjoyment is a common end-goal--that which prevents the use of the hands is necessarily antagonistic.


Similarly, the height of a sink typically requires that the dishwasher either bend over repeatedly or assume a hunched position.  This is a form of twisting, which the National Center for Biotechnology Information relates can cause chronic lower back pain ("Low").  Chronic pain, by making many activities painful that would otherwise not be, has an antagonistic function; people tend to avoid things that are painful, and causing avoidance of an activity the performance of which is otherwise desirable is very much antagonistic.  In its potential to promote such circumstances as keep people from doing things because they hurt when they ought not to do so, dishwashing has a markedly antagonistic aspect.

Worse yet, dishwashing is a frequently-necessary activity, needing to take place daily or more often.  Unless it does, the chances of stink becoming unacceptable or vermin and disease growing in the house increase immensely.  As such, each of the annoyances and inhibitions of enjoyment that it provokes happen every single day in many households; in some, it is even more frequent, taking place after each of the traditional "three square meals a day" and, from time to time, brunch or afternoon tea.  Admittedly, it may be argued that the intensity of annoyance and degree of hindrance offered by a single instance of dishwashing is equivalent to that of a single instance of doing the laundry.  Certainly, laundry does require bending and twisting and hand motions, and if it does not entail quite as much potential for direct injury as does dishwashing, it does offer opportunities for injury to occur by other means.  But because dishwashing takes place so much more frequently than doing the laundry--and laundry is commonly regarded as a weekly occurrence among household chores--the intensity and degree of dishwashing antagonism are amplified to a much greater level than is the case for laundry, making dishwashing far more of a hindrance to the focal character in people's lives--the people themselves--than caring for the linens.


In truth, it is difficult if not impossible for any one person to fully maintain a household of more than one person, so that the division of chores becomes a necessity in short order.  Certainly, among siblings and among roommates and families, much attention is paid to who does what and how hard each thing is.  Knowing which chores are most onerous, then, has a direct effect on the harmony of many households, and that harmony is a thing which ought well to be protected.

Works Cited
~"Chapter III: Of Virtue in Work." The Bhagavad-Gita. Sacred-Texts.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 July 2011.
~Edmundson, Mark. "Against Readings." Profession (2009): 56-65. Print.
~Hoover, Bob. "Inauguration Poet Praises Virtue of Work." Post-Gazette.com. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 24 February 2010. Web. 13 July 2011.
~National Center for Biotechnology Information. "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome." PubMedHealth, 25 May 2010. Web. 13 July 2011.
~---. "Low Back Pain." PubMedHealth 10 July 2009. Web. 13 July 2011.
~World Youth Day. "Saint Isidore, a Farmer Who Found God through His Work." WYD 2011 Madrid Official Site. World Youth Day, 2011. Web. 13 July 2011.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Sample Contrast Paper

Students, please find below a draft of a contrast paper, as discussed during class. As with the earlier sample definition paper, keep in mind that it is a draft and not a finished work. Do also note that the larger group at work is not allowed for student use.

Oh, two other things:
1) This is an example of how to make the argument. It is not necessarily true.
2) The example is the average acceptable length for your own papers, when formatted for class submission.

An antagonist is anything that hinders or prevents a focal figure or focal figures from pursuing an end goal.  The household chores of doing laundry and of washing dishes both perform antagonistic functions.  Of the two, the more antagonistic is the dishwashing.

Laundry is certainly antagonistic to those who have to do it.  For many in New York City and the surrounding urban sprawl, the chore requires an excursion to a laundry facility, which effectively prevents at-home relaxation.  Even if a person lives in a building with its own laundry rooms, as is the case with many college dormitories, that person is obliged to remain with the laundry while it is being done, lest the clothes be stolen or thrown aside in favor of another person's wash.  In addition, then, to hindering many people's at-home relaxation--a goal common to a great many people and almost-universally regarded as a good thing--laundry day invites other persons to act as antagonists, thereby admitting the possibility of its own prevention.  Further, laundry facilities are expensive, taking money away from being spent on more favored pursuits and thereby acting antagonistically financially.

Even for those who are fortunate enough to have washers and dryers in their homes, laundry is antagonistic.  Because the machines are in the home, they intrude upon the home-dweller's awareness to a greater extent than does the laundromat walked by on the way to the bus stop or subway station; that intrusion tends to inhibit enjoyment of other activities, making it antagonistic.  Also, the presence of machinery in the home opens up the possibility of mechanical malfunction in the home.  Specifically, washing machines can flood the rooms in which they sit, and dryers can cause fires.  Both are generally considered to be detrimental to the conduct of other household activities, and since those activities are typically desirable end goals, insofar as the equipment needed to do laundry inhibits them, the task is antagonistic.

Dishwashing is hardly an enjoyable task.  Since dishes become dirty primarily through use, and the use of dishes typically involves foodstuffs, dirty dishes are commonly festooned with unused food and drink.  Being largely organic, that food and drink begins to corrupt soon after it is set aside, and corrupting foodstuffs have an unfortunate tendency to stink.  Bad smells are typically regarded as inhibiting enjoyment, and enjoyment is a prized end-goal of a great many people.  Since dishwashing tends to create a situation in which an end-goal is inhibited, it is necessarily antagonistic.

In addition, dishwashing exerts a number of physical ill-effects upon those who do it.  In many cases, the activity involves sticking one's hands into water through which one cannot see.  Knives, forks, graters, and the occasional broken glass appear among the dishes that are concealed by such water, and so sticking one's hands into it invites cuts, punctures, abrasions, and other injuries.  Even leaving aside such directly concrete instances of harm, washing dishes requires repetitive wrist motions, which common understanding notes leads to carpal tunnel syndrome and in turn prevents people from effectively performing any number of manual tasks.  Since many of the things that are enjoyed are done with the hands--and, as noted before, enjoyment is a common end-goal--that which prevents the use of the hands is necessarily antagonistic.  Similarly, the height of a sink typically requires that the dishwasher either bend over repeatedly or assume a hunched position, both of which tend to cause back pain and thereby inhibit enjoyment in a manner like to wrist injuries.

Worse yet, dishwashing is a frequently-necessary activity, needing to take place daily or more often.  As such, each of the annoyances and inhibitions of enjoyment that it provokes happen every single day in many households.  While it may be argued that the intensity of annoyance and degree of hindrance offered by a single instance of dishwashing is equivalent to that of a single instance of doing the laundry, because dishwashing takes place so much more frequently than doing the laundry--commonly regarded as a weekly occurrence among household chores--the intensity and degree are amplified to a much greater level than is the case for laundry, making dishwashing more antagonistic.

In truth, it is difficult if not impossible for any one person to fully maintain a household of more than one person, so that the division of chores becomes a necessity in short order.  Certainly, among siblings and among roommates and families, much attention is paid to who does what and how hard each thing is.  Knowing which chores are most onerous, then, has a direct effect on the harmony of many households, and that harmony is a thing which ought well to be protected.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Sample Classification Paper, Option 2

Students, please find below a draft of a classification paper that follows Option 2, as discussed during class.  As with the earlier sample definition paper, keep in mind that it is a draft and not a finished work.  Do also note that the classification at work is not allowed for student use.

Oh, two other things:
1) This is an example of how to make the argument.  It is not necessarily true.
2) The example is the minimum acceptable length for your own papers, when formatted for class submission.

An antagonist is anything that hinders or prevents a focal figure or focal figures from pursuing an end goal.  Many people claim that Mr. Elliott keeps his students from effectively pursuing their end goal of getting an education and thus that he is an antagonist.  As it turns out, this is not entirely true.

It is admittedly the case that Mr. Elliott does teach a subject that many people hate: English.  It is also true that he assigns a fair amount of work to the students in his English classes and that he has high standards of performance on the work he assigns; few people earn As from him, and many fail to pass his classes.  But none of this means that students do not receive educations from him.

That a person hates a given thing does not mean that the person will neither have use for the thing nor benefit from understanding it.  In the case of English, students in Mr. Elliott's classes are in a country whose dominant language is English, so that there is a larger social impetus for them to learn the language.  More specifically, English in its various forms remains a worldwide common tongue; scientists and businesspeople across the planet conduct their affairs in the language, so for students to successfully navigate the broader technical and commercial world, thereby earning a living as many of them profess a desire to do, they will need to have a command of the subject matter Mr. Elliott teaches.  His subject, then, is far from antagonistic, but is instead a significant facilitator of student desire, and so in that subject, Mr. Elliott is not an antagonist.

That a thing requires effort, even sustained and at times dull effort, does not necessarily make it a hindrance.  The English language, like all currently spoken human languages, is vast and nuanced, with quirks that have grown up across fifteen centuries and more of use by populations widely disparate in time, geography, cultural heritage, and socioeconomic status.  It is a complex system, and like all complex systems, it is not necessarily easily understood, let alone mastered.  It requires difficult work to achieve competence in English, and Mr. Elliott provides that difficulty for his students both in the amount of work assigned and in the standards of performance he enforces.  Repeated practice is necessary to move practitioners past they point at which they must think about the specifics of the actions they perform and into the area in which they consider when and for what purpose to perform those actions.  Thus, Mr. Elliott assigns much work.  Also, if practitioners are told at the outset that their skills are sufficient, then they have no motivation to improve those skills; it is only by insisting on a higher standard of performance that higher levels of performance are achieved.  As such, Mr. Elliott does not reward lower levels of proficiency, and in the combination of his restriction of reward and expectation of amount of practice, he provides students with the necessary difficulty to improve.  As such, he necessarily helps them to learn what they need to learn, and so is far from hindering them as an antagonist must.

It is unfortunately true that some people have overly inflated opinions of themselves and their abilities.  In such cases, they need to learn the true measure of their skills, and this means that some will not receive high grades and that others will need to repeat courses.  As regards Mr. Elliott's classes, students in both situations are given opportunities to learn about themselves and the system into which they have voluntarily entered by registering for college level coursework.  The lessons thusly offered are not necessarily those that students either expect or desire, but that does not mean that they are not lessons and that being offered them is not concomitantly educational.  Accordingly, even in issuing low grades based on low performance--or, more commonly, a lack of observable performance--Mr. Elliott teaches.  If the point of being a student is to gain an education, any teaching furthers that goal, and so Mr. Elliott serves to facilitate education, denying him status as an antagonist to the students in his classes.

That Mr. Elliott does not necessarily follow the easygoing model of a great many other instructors does not make him an antagonist.  Rather, it offers a divergent opinion and a specific set of challenges to students that they are not likely to find in a classroom elsewhere--although they will face harder tasks yet when the worst consequence is, instead of the poor grade Mr. Elliott can assign, unemployment, homelessness, injury, or death.  His classroom, then, is potentially a place well worth seeking.

Sample Classification Paper, Option 1

Students, please find below a draft of a classification paper that follows Option 1, as discussed during class.  As with the earlier sample definition paper, keep in mind that it is a draft and not a finished work.  Do also note that the classification at work is not allowed for student use.

Oh, two other things:
1) This is an example of how to make the argument.  It is not necessarily true.
2) The example is the minimum acceptable length for your own papers, when formatted for class submission.

An antagonist is anything that hinders or prevents a focal figure or focal figures from pursuing an end goal.  As a teacher, someone whose ostensible purpose is to aid students in pursuing their educations, Geoffrey B. Elliott should be far removed from being an antagonist.  All too often, however, the reverse is true, and Mr. Elliott is very much an antagonist.

By some accounts, such formal education as takes place in a classroom is exactly that: formal.  It is old-fashioned, ritualized, and more or less removed from the day-to-day practical realities of contemporary life.  This is particularly true in studying the fine arts and humanities (under which heading the study of English, and therefore Mr. Elliott's teaching, falls), in which the focus is commonly on people and works that, however interesting and/or relevant they may have been when they were created, are now so old as to be fully disjunct from what is going on now.  Less commonly, the fine arts and humanities turn their attentions to constructions so strange that they defy common sense and the typical aesthetics of the population at large, and so do not even have the claim of the older stuff to have been relevant once; they are the "never-was" to the commonly-studied "has-been."  In either case, they do not bear in on what people need to know now to get ahead now, and their study takes up time that could be devoted instead to finding ways to do things and make money.  As such, in the very subject Mr. Elliott teaches, he serves as a hindrance to student success, making him antagonistic.

His antagonism becomes more overt and direct than the simple fact of his subject area, though.  In the classroom, Mr. Elliott is known as a tyrant.  Most of his students seek to have high grade point averages (GPA), rightly thinking that to have a 3.5 or better GPA will lead them to institutional honors and to improved abilities to find employment after graduation.  Getting such a GPA requires that the grades assigned in coursework be high, the traditional B or better.  Mr. Elliott, however, rarely offers that level of grade to his students; typically, students will make the so-called average C, and a high number of students fail his class for one reason or another.  Both sets of students do not receive the high grades that mark successful experiences in formal education, making it more difficult for them to secure a good overall GPA and therefore limiting their abilities to attain institutional honors and after-graduation employment.  His grading, then, marks Mr. Elliott as a direct antagonist to the students who are, after all, the focus of school.

Other classroom conduct displays Mr. Elliott's antagonistic tendencies.  The low grades he hands out are, at least in theory, based on a number of assignments, including long readings and pages-long papers.  Completing the assignments takes time, and students typically do not have time outside of class to devote to performing the kinds of mental labor that Mr. Elliott unmercifully demands of them.  They do not have the time or energy to spend poring over pages of a textbook they purchased as cheaply as possible and are not going to keep past the end of the semester or to sit and type out two or three pages of text about a subject nobody cares about and only one person--and that a person who, following an old adage, teaches because he cannot get a real job--is going to read with anything approaching interest.  But students are expected to do so, rather than going out and actually enjoying themselves, and they are punished if they fail to meet Mr. Elliott's demands.  That punishment takes the form of low grades, with the consequences outlined above, and so in assigning the work he requires of his students, Mr. Elliott presents himself as an antagonist towards them.

It is expected of teachers that they facilitate learning and help their students to set and achieve goals.  At the college level, the end goal is already in place, so that all a teacher need really do is facilitate learning so as to help students get where they want to be.  Mr. Elliott does not do this, but rather performs the opposite function, getting in the way of students making good grades and doing the things that they actually need to do by forcing them to do things of minimal or zero importance.  He is an antagonist, and like all antagonists, he is to be avoided or defeated.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Sample Definition Paper

The essay which appears below is at the short end of what is an acceptable length for the definition paper I expect from my freshman English students.  It attempts to refine the raw concept of antagonism for my students; students will need to follow the directions for their papers that are provided here in terms of topic; the formatting is adjusted for appearance on a blog.  While it is a five-paragraph essay, each of the five paragraphs is well over one hundred words, and the number of sentences varies.

Many stories depend upon conflict, and a conflict can only be as intense as those involved in it are closely matched.  As such, the opposition to the focal character or characters of a story is every bit as important to that story as those focal characters.  That opposition is labeled as an antagonist, but it is not necessarily true that the opposition is evil or even targeted at the focal character or characters.  Anything that impedes the ability of the focal character or characters to pursue the end goal of a story is an antagonist.  Some examples of antagonists are rabid wolves, muggers on the streets, and overly rigid legal structures.

Wolves often figure as creatures associated with evil; werewolves are classic movie monsters and beasts of folklore, wolves themselves are one of the traditional forms assumed by vampires, and the animals themselves factor in as the villains of such traditional stories as “Little Red Riding Hood.”  More concretely, they do present themselves as problems for those whose livelihoods depend upon livestock; wolves prey upon such creatures as sheep and goats, and those who herd them for their living tend to view their predators as enemies.  When the already-oppositional lupine is infected with a disease that drives it to unusually aggressive behavior, the antagonistic tendencies of the beasts are only enhanced; rather than attacking sheep, they will attack people, and they are even more insidious in that they can prove fatal from even a minor bite, rather than the severe injuries normally required to kill.  The reports of objectionable wolf behavior come from the people who are affected, and as it is a commonplace for the tellers of tales to present themselves as the focal characters or to speak on their behalf, the rabid wolves find themselves as the antagonists of the stories told of them.  This occurs despite the fact that as animals—and as animals whose brains are affected by disease—they lack the capacity for moral judgment that can actually cause evil, so that while opposition is required for antagonism, direct malevolence is not.

Back-alley muggers, however, are directly and deliberately aligned against those whom they oppose.  Attacking victims from ambush and using threats of force or actual force to extract from them what valuables they may have are certainly oppositional to those victims, and since the prevailing social mores maintain that persons have the right to be secure in their own persons, the victims, being wronged, are made the focal characters of the true stories of their being mugged.  Also, attacking another person from ambush requires advanced thought and deliberation to establish a position from which to attack and a route from which to escape from the scene of the attack; intent is thus necessary, and is pursued at length by muggers.  Opposition can therefore be deliberate, so that those who pursue it are made antagonists.

Both rabid wolves and muggers are discrete, identifiable beings.  They can be seen and, potentially, avoided.  It is not necessarily true, however, that opposition comes from a directly identifiable being.  An inflexible legal system can prove oppositional, even to those who intend no wrong and simply try to live their lives well, and there is no specific person or tangible object that presents that opposition.  While it is true that laws are put into place, enforced, and interpreted by individuals, working singly or in concert, the laws themselves are not tangible.  There is no single object that is, in fact, the law; destroying no single document or group of documents will actually unmake the law.  Even so, it can prove oppositional.  Legislation restricting access to certain chemicals—whether used to harm others or by consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes—proves a hindrance to those who would employ them for whatever reason.  Legal decisions restricting what can and cannot, and what must and must not, be taught in classrooms inhibits academic freedom and restricts the ability of pupils to learn freely, both of which are oppositional to the free inquiry upon which an open society theoretically depends; it can hardly be argued that those who are trying to learn are acting ill, and those who are attempting to learn are those from whose perspectives narratives are typically presented, so that those things which oppose them must be called antagonistic.  Again, though, the raw definition of antagonism only provides for that opposition; it does not even necessitate a distinct thing to present that opposition.

Whatever form it takes, however concrete or abstract, that which opposes the focal character or characters is the antagonist.  There are many varieties of antagonist, just as there are many different stories, and it is in the distinctions among them that they become truly interesting.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Sample Summary

The following derives from another blog I maintain.

On April 23, 2011, Charles McGrath's "Why the King James Bible Endures" appeared in the online New York Times.  In the article, McGrath argues that a major cause of the text's endurance is specifically in its removal from everyday language.  He comments that the language chosen by the fifty-four member group that initially produced it chose wording that was deliberately archaic--though accessible to the readership of the time--so that even on its first printing, the text would have been different from the presumed common speech of the readership.  McGrath also voices annoyance at the tendency of more recent English transliterations of the Bible to assume a conversational tone, commenting that "Not everyone prefers a God who talks like a pal or a guidance counselor."  The article effectively articulates and provides support for one view of why the KJV endures, although more could be done to support its assertions and there is certainly room for debate.

Definition
Archaic /âr*kā'ĭk/ (adj.)- after an older pattern, style, or model no longer in common use, often several decades or more out of common use

Monday, April 18, 2011

About the Summer Theme

I tend to teach my composition and reading classes to a theme.  I find that doing so gives shape and guidance to my lectures, which helps me.  I find also that it allows students to develop a knowledge base and to work from it, which helps them.  It allows them to deal with information that they have already learned, so that they can focus on the application of the knowledge rather than trying to acquire an entirely new set of knowledge every few weeks.  Also, it gives them confidence in their own ability to gain and exhibit expertise in a given subject.

Selecting a theme is always a difficult thing for me.  Since I will be spending fourteen or fifteen weeks dealing with it, the theme needs to be one that will not bore me.  Since I am doing a lot of other work, it has to be something that I either already know or am working with in my own research.  And it does, in fact, have to be one that I can have some certainty is accessible to the students--I tried one a semester or two ago that did not work well at all, largely because it called for my students to stretch too far.*

In the spring term, I used genres of music.  While there was some initial difficulty, I did get a number of the students on board, and I was able to get in some pretty good papers.  It was also fun putting up examples; I think I did a little bit of decent writing, and it is useful to stretch myself a little outside what I normally do.

For the summer, I am returning to my own literary work (though not exclusively, as should become evident).  It is a truism that a hero cannot be any better than the opposition that hero faces.  Antagonists, then, drive the plots of stories--whether in writing, on stage, on screen (big or small), in games, or whatever.  And it is the antagonist, in any of a number of forms, that is the theme for my composition courses in the summer term.

*I tend to adhere to Vygotsky's concept of the "zone of proximal development," which is that level of difficulty just beyond what a student can do unaided.  It provides a comfortable stretch for the students' abilities, challenging them to improve without being so far ahead of where they are as to promote disengagement because "there's just no way I can do it."  Sometimes, though, I do miss.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

A Beginning Recommended Reading List

At one point during this semester, I discussed with one of my classes a set of readings that I consider vital to understand English-language literary (and broader artistic) culture*; in brief, I asserted at least part of my own canon.  Not long ago, one of the students in that class asked if I would kindly post the list so that it could be referenced.  Hence, the following (which may or may not line up with what I noted in class):

  • The Holy Bible (particularly the King James Version for English literature, though a good English version of the Catholic canon will also be of help)
  • Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey
  • Virgil, The Æneid
  • Beowulf
  • Dante, Divine Comedy
  • Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
  • Machiavelli, The Prince
  • Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur
  • Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier
  • Spenser, The Faerie Queene
  • Elizabeth I, "Speech to the Troops at Tilbury" and "The Golden Speech"
  • Shakespeare (all of it, really, but notably Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Julius Cæsar, Romeo and Juliet {I hate the play but it gets referenced frequently}, Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado about Nothing, and the sonnets)
  • Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
  • Bacon (aside from having a cool name), Essays
  • More, Utopia
  • Sidney, A Defence of Poesy
  • Donne, "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning," "The Flea," Elegy 8, Meditation 17 from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and the Holy Sonnets
  • Jonson, Volpone
  • Milton, "Areopagitica" and Paradise Lost
  • Behn, Oroonoko
  • Butler, Hudibras
  • Hamilton, Mythology (not an original source but a good introduction)
The list is only partial, but it provides a solid start.  I may revisit it at some point in the future.

*I am aware that the list I provide is largely Anglo-normative.  I do not mean by this to disenfranchise other languages and literatures, but the list was compiled in response to a specific question by a student, and so it is relatively narrow in its scope.  Also, it reflects my own readings, which have, admittedly, been Anglo-normative and largely defined by the traditional patriarchal literary canon.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Summer 2011 Schedule Preview

As posted on the portal site for the college where I teach, in the Summer 2011 term, I shall teach the following classes:

ENG 099: Basic Communictaion (one section)
ENG 101: Freshman Composition 1 (one section)
ENG 202: Technical Writing and Presentation (two sections)
HUM 110: Speech (three sections)

If the schedule holds as is, my usual Tuesday student conference time will be suspended.  Thursday afternoons, though, will be pretty good meeting times.