WRITE: Based on a close reading of Ben Fountain’s novel and per the CRRA prompt, compose a thesis statement for the essay. Keep in mind that the thesis should be 1-2 sentences, and should answer the questions of the prompt about genre and conventions as posed below:
From the CRRA Essay Prompt (Thesis questions, which your thesis should answer):
1) How does Fountain’s novel align within a specific genre and its conventions AND subvert (or break) the conventions of the genre? For example, does Fountain both align and subvert within the same genre or does he align within one genre and subvert or break a convention within another genre?
2) How does this combination of both the alignment and subversion of these conventions work to convey his implied purpose and/or message to his primarily adult male, educated audience? In crafting your response, you should also consider how Ben Fountain (the rhetor) acknowledges, uses, manipulates, and responds to genre conventions in his novel, and for what implied purpose and/or message. What might Fountain (as the rhetor) be implicitly trying to say or accomplish through the text?
SECONDLY, write about an essay with your thesis. You will be responsible for adhering to MLA format and documentation style.
Peer Review is due by Thursday, April 16th, 11:59 pm (instructions to follow at a later date)
Peer Review is required for all essay assignments, and each student will be automatically assigned two peer reviewers once you have uploaded your draft prior to the submittal date and time. If you miss the deadline, you miss peer review, which is part of your Class Community grade.
Final CRRA: Sunday, April 19th, by 11:59 PM (to a different assignment shell)
(1) Upload your working draft/final draft as a Word Document (No PDF files. No PAGES documents) to the Canvas assignment shell. You must upload a DOC. or DOCX. – No exceptions.
(2) Upload the same working draft/final draft to Turnitin.com into the Critical Reading Response assignment folder, and then when it’s available, review your Originality Report for errors in citation.
PRIMARY SOURCE: Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, pages 1-107.
SECONDARY SOURCES:
Wallis R. Sanborn’s “Introduction” and “Epilogue” to The American Novel of War, and “On Satire and Parody: The Importance of Being Ironic” by Roger J. Kreuz and Richard M. Roberts. (These are the only secondary sources that you should need.)
PURPOSE:
This assignment is intended for you to practice the building blocks of effective analytical writing: making claims and providing evidence in the context of a response to Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. In several connected paragraphs, you’ll develop a response to some preliminary questions about genre and conventions. In writing this response, you should demonstrate awareness and understanding of the text’s relationship to the conventions of its genre and/or the context in which the given text was produced, and to demonstrate an ability to analyze the text based on that understanding.
ASSIGNMENT PROMPT:
This assignment begins with the question of genre. In Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, write a thesis-driven essay that answers the following questions:
1) How does Fountain’s novel align within a specific genre and its conventions AND subvert (or break) the conventions of the genre? For example, does Fountain both align and subvert within the same genre or does he align within one genre and subvert or break a convention within another genre?
2) How does this combination of both the alignment and subversion of these conventions work to convey his implied purpose and/or message to his primarily adult male, educated audience? In crafting your response, you should also consider how Ben Fountain (the rhetor) acknowledges, uses, manipulates, and responds to genre conventions in his novel, and for what implied purpose and/or message. What might Fountain (as the rhetor) be implicitly trying to say or accomplish through the text?
IMPORTANT: For the purposes of this class, Fountain’s book may be categorized into at least two genres: war and satire. Thus, you are restricted to addressing the genre of the American war novel and/or the genre of satire. However, consider that this is a very short paper, and as such, you’ll more than likely need to narrow your focus.
REQUIREMENTS:
You are required to utilize at least one of the secondary sources noted above, and you are responsible for supporting your response through careful selection and thorough analysis of textual evidence (specific quotes from Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, pages 1-107). You should not need to perform any additional outside research, especially if you have read the above texts that I’ve assigned for this assignment.
Multiple drafts, peer review and revision are required elements of the assignment. The final essay must be 950-1000 words long, and because this is an academic assignment in the School of Humanities, your manuscript should closely follow Modern Language Association (MLA) formatting and documentation style. The writing should be error-free and the language in the tone of formal academic discourse.
AUDIENCE:
You are writing an academic paper in the School of Humanities, thus your audience is comprised of your peers and the instructor.