Instructions
The paper will be a synthesis of the critical tools you have learned during the duration of this course. You will be conducting a criticism of some text or artifact of popular culture of your choice. You will choose the feminist perspective of the rhetorical approaches we talk about this semester in the Sellnow book. The paper should be somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 words double-spaced and typed in Times New Roman 12 point font.
Margins should be 1 inch on the left and right and top and bottom. The examples of student essays in the previously assigned Sellnow chapters should serve as a good model for how to use a method to analyze a certain text, although not all of them include a literature review, which you should have.
List of topics that previous students have used that YOU CAN NOT USE BUT JUST TO HELP PICK OUT A TOPIC
● Feminism in The Devil Wears Prada
● A Radical Feminist Analysis of the Main Character and Messages in the Television
Series Scandal
● “So Say We All”: How Battlestar Galatica Created Feminist Discourse in Pop Culture
● Feminist Perspective/Themes in the show Unbelievable
● Rogue One, Female Lead Role Does Not Mean Equality: Radical Feminist Lens
● A Feminist Perspective Analysis: Comparing and Contrasting Charlie’s Angels 2000 vs 2019
Film Versions
Keep in mind that you DON’T need to do anything on this list, but hopefully, you can see that your options are fairly limitless. Also, I’ve taken out the requirement for an intro/justification and a literature review since we’ve moved to 7-week accelerated sessions, so disregard the parts of the student samples that include these two sections. You’ll only be required to have a methods section, analysis, and conclusion.
Your paper should provide novel insights about the connotations of the artifact you wish to analyze (i.e. not a summary of what other writers have written about it). It must also include information from the readings as a theoretical grounding for your analysis. It should also include a clear thesis/argument, a rationale for the artifact and some context
regarding its cultural emergence, a review of the literature and basis for the method (citing other studies on similar artifacts and/or readings from the course), and an analysis section (the most important part). Remember, you are trying to understand the cultural assumptions that led to the abstract being created. Ask yourself, “how does the small help us to understand the big?” In other words, how does this artifact help us understand the larger culture that created it? The majority of your paper should be dedicated to discussing your analysis and what the artifact reveals about the culture that produced it.
The basic structure of the paper is as follows:
● Method/Approach
○ Research question(s) – Many of you will only need a single question. In line with my above examples, you could say something like “What are the Marxist themes in Jurassic Park?”
○ Framework, lens, or method you plan to use – Even though you probably learned about your method in class from the readings assigned, you still need to summarize the key principles associated with that method and how you plan to apply it in analyzing your artifact.
○ Texts/artifact selected, where it was located, and why you chose it – You don’t need to rehash anything you had in the introduction/justification of your paper, but if you sampled texts from a larger artifact, you’ll need to justify why you chose those. If you chose a film, your justification is likely adequate in the front end of your paper, but if you chose to analyze the TV Show Gossip Girl, you’ll need to tell me which representative episodes you chose and why you selected those in particular.
● Analysis
○ Description of the text and interpretations based on the framework you chose to apply – this is really the meat of your paper where you’ll systematically go through and explicate insights from your artifact using the method you chose. If you did a feminist analysis, I would expect you to provide the feminist themes in the artifact and give ample examples to illustrate those things. Remember to weave your insights into a narrative flow and don’t just list them. You’re telling a story and making an argument about
how this artifact is functioning persuasively or ideologically and so it needs to be written out and engaging.
● Conclusion
○ Final comments about what we learn from this and how it contributes to our understanding of pop culture – My colleague, Matt Barton, likes to call this section the “What’s the news?” section. What he means is that you have to tell the reader why they spent so much time reading your paper. What’s interesting about it? What did you find in your analysis that someone who just watched the film/TV show, etc. couldn’t have gleaned themselves just casually observing. This is the smart part of the paper where you really think about what’s interesting here. This section usually separates the “A” papers from the “B” papers.
Grading of Assessment
The paper is worth 100 points. “A” papers will have a fully developed introduction/rationale, literature review, methods, and analysis/discussion. They will also be well-structured, smoothly written (free of awkward phrasings, grammatical, and typographical errors), and offer deep insights into the text that a layperson might not notice just passively observing the film, show, musical artifact, etc. “B” papers will have completed all of the above sections, but the writing may be in need of some work and there may be transition problems between ideas. Additionally, the insights generated in the analysis may be on the superficial side and not add as much insight to our understanding of the artifact as an “A” paper would. “C” papers or below have missing sections of the paper or show much less effort than those elements of a good paper described above.
