Scholarly Conversation Paper

19Jan 2022 by

Task:Write an essay in which you put Zadie Smiths Speaking in Tongues, Cathy Park Hongs Bad English, and Gloria Anzalduas How to Tame a Wild Tongue in conversation with an object of analysis.
Select an object to analyze. This ject can be a poem, song, excerpt from a novel, short story, or memoir, scene from a movie or play, etc. In the spirit of the three essays, the object must exhibit at least two different languages, dialects, or language codes (modes of speaking in the same language). This object does not function as an example of a claim that you already have in mind. Rather, this is an object that you will analyze in order to identify a scholarly problem and create a claim.
Analyze your object on its own, then in relation to the three essays. Find an interpretive problem by first locating a continuity between one of the three essays and your object. Next, articulate a break in the continuitya way that one author does not merely echo or allude to language in the same way as the other authors, but departs from a pattern or changes an idea. From your observations of the similarities and differences between these authors, make a claim about your object in light of these essays. How does our understanding of the object change when we read it in relation to the three essays?
Your essay should offer:

a close reading of a specific object; and

an explanation of how close readings of the three essays illuminate your object in a way
that would not have been possible without the analyses provided in the three essays.

The paper should be 1500-2000 words long (include a word count at the end of each draft).