Short paper Guidelines

Each of you will complete two short 2 1/2-5  paged  papers during the course of the semester.  The due dates for these are listed on your course calendar; there are five over-riding topics from which you may choose.  For each, you need to:

• Sit down and do some prewriting: what have you learned by looking at the novels through this lens (that is, considering genre, or gender, or race, or class, or readerly aspects of the texts?)?  What interests you about this topic in particular?

• Next, come up with an arguable, persuasive thesis statement.  This MUST be something someone who's read the books could argue against; otherwise, you'll end up writing a book report instead of a literary analysis

• For gender, you might consider whether the books reinforce gender stereotypes, transcend them, or just reflect the way things are in our world.  Why did Harry need to be a male?  Would the books have worked well if he'd been a she?  Which characters represent/transcend/simply reflect gender stereotypes?  is Hogwarts a gender biased environment?  You may also want to think in terms of the types of masculinity avaiable to Harry as he grows up: would he need to make choices between being aggressive, passive, or assertive if he'd been a female rather than a male? If you're more interested in the (usually male) hero archetype, you could compare Harry to another classic(al) hero and draw some conclusions about how his differences are important to the books or compare him to another coming of age novel protagonist for the same reason.  If you do this, be sure gender is central to your thinking: does Harry himself meet the somewhat gendered expectations of the hero archetype or coming of age protagonist?  Why/why not?

• For psychology. think about the ways in which Harry has to mature psychologically as he grows into a hero.  Does his journey to adulthood match that of the Jungian archetypal hero?  How/how not?  You might also consider phallic symbols in the novels and how they do or do not reinforce ideals about male power.  Another way to go with psychology would be to diagnose certain characters with psychological disorders: is Voldemort a sociopath or psychopath?  What evidence form the books can you point to to prove your opinion?  Would you say Harry suffers from PTSD or depression?  Is Snape obsessive compulsive? If you want to diagnose a character, you may find one outside source to help you describe the psychological state you see in that character; try finding online references to the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM) for help.

• For race, you might consider the same types of questions as above under gender, only in regards to race: do the books affirm racial stereotypes? 

• For reader response, consider the implications of how and why Rowling makes us work as readers.  What is the effect of all (or one specific set of) the same as difference occurances in the novels?  Can you link that to a certain genre or certain theme?  Why does Rowling make us reread people so often and so many times?  What makes a good reader, and who in the novels might serve as a model of sorts for good/critical reading?  What do the novels say about books and reading, and why are both often shown to be dangerous?  What's the effect of reading "The Tale of the Three Brothers" as a myse en abyme?  Which characters might stand in for the three brothers?  What's the effect of all the "multi-modal" ways to experience the books--theme park, X Box, etc.?  Which does a better job of portraying the true meaning behind the stories as you see it, the books or the movies?  What is that true meaning, and how does one portray it better than the eother?  To minimize this huge question, you might think in terms of a certain theme and how the books or moveis gets at it better.

• Find some passages in the books that help prove or showcase your opinion; keep these marked for use in your paper.

• Find some spots in the books that might disprove your thesis; mark these as well.

• Go back to the passages you've picked as evidence for your claim/thesis: spend some time analyzing the word choice and looking at the deeper meaning behind what's going on in them. 

• Do the same for the passages that might disprove your claim.

•  You're ready to write your paper.  Form paragraphs around your close reading of the passages, quoting and analyzing the passages as you go.  Make sure you don't slip into plot summary--your reader knows what's happened.  It's your job to tell us how what's happened helps prove your opinion about the novels (your thesis).  A strong paper will deal not only with passages that prove the thesis but will also show how passages that might disprove it do not, in the end analysis, invalidate the thesis.

• Let me know if you'd like any help or want me to read the paper before it's due.  I'll be glad to look at it and talk with you in my office about it.

You may use one of these papers as a jumping off place for your research paper, due later in the semester.