READ THE INSTRUCTIONS VERY CAREFULLY
This is not a midterm. This is not an essay writing assignment. This is a take-home exam. It is not expected that you spend five, six hours or more on this. It will be graded with the expectation that you will sit down for two hours and write out your responses to the questions, filling up four pages as though you were sitting for the exam in class. You simply do it on your own time.
Instructions
For this exam, you are expected to write out your response to the questions in a word document and to upload the document to SafeAssign. Your total response document should be four full pages of text, double-spaced twelve point font. Include header and document information indicating your name, the exam, the course, dates and page numbers. Be sure to indicate what questions you are responding to in your response.
Using all of the information we have covered in this course with regards to the text, A Small Place, develop essay responses to the questions below. On the blog, click on the link A Small Place, in the right-hand column under TEXTS, to find all blog posts about the book. This includes class notes, student research presentations and additional instructor suggested posts. From these materials as well as your own study, construct a thorough, logically-developed response to the exam questions. You are not expected to answer every question posited in the prompt that follows. You are, however, expected to fill four double-spaced typed pages with thorough, thoughtful, well constructed responses to those three of four questions that you see as fitting together. That means your response should be full of details, quotes, examples, evidences, and specific information that you pull from the text and class materials (Details). Once you find details and specific information that you feel go together in response to the questions, talk about how they fit together (Structure). Finally, talk about why they fit together and what it means more broadly (Analysis). Please speak to me (in email, in class, in office hours) about any questions you may have.
Available online: EXAM RUBRIC
Exam Prompt
Read the epigraph to Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Milan Kundera on page vii of the text. How does Kincaid's text represent "the fascinating imaginative realm" spoken of in this epigraph?
How does Kincaid's text lead the reader to imagine the suffering of others? Is it effective in doing this? What does it mean to imagine suffering?
In class, I emphasized the nature of fiction as a construction rather than as 'not true'. Discuss how the Kincaid text is a construction, a fiction. In what ways does the text represent a set of aesthetic choices based on a certain values or themes? What are the elements that make up this construction? (i.e., elements of fiction) What elements were specifically not chosen?
Looking at the articles posted on the bibliography, how do these writers examine elements of fiction? Analyze one of the articles. How do they form their argument about Kincaid's text? How does the article propose that the text functions? What weaknesses do you find in the article?
How does Kincaid's text form language in a way that calls attention to and frees it from the assumptions, cliches, stereotypes, or myths otherwise associated with the language?
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