Japanese culture response paper 1

EAST 212: INTRO TO EAST ASIAN CULTURE: JAPAN

RESPONSE PAPER 1 GUIDELINES AND PROMPTS

DUE: 9/30, at the beginning of class (please hand in hard copy) LENGTH: Your essays are to be Roughly 600 words, or two double-spaced typed pages, in length (+bibliography).

GOALS/METHODOLOGY: This assignment is meant to foster interpretive reading skills supported by textual evidence from primary sources and contextual evidence or theoretical arguments gleaned from secondary sources. The exact method for the paper is somewhat open and depends on the nature of the thesis. In broad terms, the paper should demonstrate a reading of a text (or texts) that is supported by specific evidence drawn from these text(s) and which engages issues discussed in class or which you find in secondary readings. EVALUATION: Your paper will be evaluated according to these guidelines: Argument or thesis: Do you have a clearly stated and well-­‐developed thesis that fine-­‐tunes the issues raised in the class? A tip: At an early point in the process, ask yourself: what is my thesis? If you cannot point to a specific sentence or two that encapsulates it, work on the formulation of your paper. As thesis is not a description of your methodology ("In this paper, I will examine x and y, then look at z"), it is a statement of what your methods will ultimately prove (describing your methodology at the outset is fine, of course. But you still need a thesis statement). As a corollary to this: at the end of each body paragraph, ask yourself: how does this extend / prove / contextualize my thesis? This will help you say the most in the somewhat constricted confines of the page limit, and help prevent the common "trying to do too much" and "short attention span theatre" pitfalls of paper-­‐writing. Finally, remember...