Essay Two: The War Film
4-5 pages
Due March 29
Your first essay detailed and explained the experience of visiting the New York Historical Society’s exhibition on slavery. One of the purposes of the assignment was to intimately engage with the objects and representations of the past. This was similar in purpose to your interview with an older relative. Together, the two experiences connect through a desire to understand the past as a space and place that produced the present, even if the people or events that produced the present are now invisible or forgotten. The representation of slavery, like your relative’s memories, is a type of “knowledge” that we can use to understand the initial “shock” of an experience. Experience and knowledge form the large and small events that embed themselves in the history of our identity.
One of your ongoing goals in this course is to try and develop your own language to describe, sensitize, and comprehend the effects of this “shock” and “knowledge” in different contexts. In this sense, you must expand your role as witness to that of scholar. A scholar, for our purposes, is a person committed to explaining, re-defining, and revising previous understandings of war, conflict, memory, and identity. This delicate and sensitive task requires you to collect information from different mediums, sources, and perspectives in order to write from the greatest possible position of authority on the topic.
For this assignment, you will become a scholar of two different films that try to imagine war. The assignment requires that you watch two different kinds of war films: a film that explores the experience of conflict, and a film that explores the aftermath of conflict. Your must explain both what the films say and how they say it. You will have to situate the films in their original historical context, mostly by summarizing who produced the films, why they were made, and how audiences reacted to them at the time they were released. Your ultimate purpose for the essay must assert an argument about what film more effectively represents the complex experience of war and conflict: the film that shows war, or the film that shows its aftermath? This argument must be stated clearly in your first paragraph, and the rest of the essay will support your assertion, and provide your readers with information about your films.
In order to support your assertion, you will have to follow the instructions above by paying close attention to how the films plot their narrative, or story. To accomplish this, you must first summarize exactly what you believe the film says. Use the following questions to help guide you through the process of the assignment. The essay will require a minimum amount of research, a bibliography, and should refer, when possible, to texts and ideas from our course.
Essay Two Outline Questions
Introduction: What two films am I writing about? What are my thoughts about the narrative of each individual film? What do these narratives have in common? What do these narratives not have in common? What film, for me, is more effective at communicating the experience of war and conflict? What are my reasons for believing this? How can I prove why I believe this? Do I state my reasons clearly?
Remember, you are not trying to prove whether all war films about the war experience or its aftermath are better than all others. You are only speaking for two films you watched, or any other films you’ve seen and may aid your argument.
Supportive Paragraphs (Historical Info): Do I clearly and factually provide information about the historical environment for each film I watched? Does the information I summarize provide the names of the director and producer(s) of the films? Do I name the year it was released? Do I summarize two or three reviews of the film from major national publications or websites? Do I provide enough contextual information about the actual war the film references and represents? Do I understand enough about that conflict to accurately describe its relationship to this film? Do I organize my information about these two films in separate, organized paragraphs? Do I cite my sources correctly within my sentences?
Remember, how you organize this essay is up to you—you may talk first only about one film and then the other, or you may want to switch going back and forth at different times to prove your point better. It’s up to you.
Supportive Paragraphs (Narrative and Structure): Do I identify and explain the principal characters and their relationship to the overall narrative? Do I explain what character(s) the film wants audiences to identify with? Do I explain how the film achieves this identification, and do I emphasize the places where this is relevant to my argument? Do I explain what I believe the narrative of the film means? Do I explain why I believe this story is effective or non-effective according to my argument? Do I explain my reasons clearly? Do I explain the key moments of the film when they’re relevant to my argument?
When I discuss key moments of the film’s narrative, do I discuss how the structure of the film works—do I explain point of view, do I describe the editing, and do I describe the location of the camera? Do I describe any other special effects necessary to the film’s representation of the narrative? Do I explain how these techniques relate to my argument about what film ‘works’ better to prove its point?
Conclusion: Am I confident that, up to this point, my reader already understands what film I find more effective and why? Am I confident, up to this point, that my readers understand my reasons for choosing the film I find more effective at communicating the experience of war? Am I confident that I have explained my reasons for my argument using organized paragraphs that reference key moments of each film, and explain how the films create those key moments? Am I confident that my vocabulary goes beyond “effective” or “not effective” when I describe these reasons—in other words, am I confident that I have invented my own language to describe what these films say, and how?
Does my conclusion go beyond re-stating the ideas in my introduction? Does my conclusion take the opportunity to connect my ideas to other ideas from the course, or from other texts? Can my conclusion reasonably connect back to previous assignments? Does my conclusion make connections to other situations I have knowledge about, either from the news or from my own experiences? Does my conclusion offer the reader something new to consider besides what I’ve already said? Do I finally conclude the essay leaving the reader conscious of my style, intelligence, and insight? Do I use the conclusion as an appropriate place to show-off my knowledge and make insightful comments about the broader implications or contexts of my subject?
Clarity, Organization, and Flow: As I guide the reader through my essay, do I emphasize the ideas I want readers to remember? Do I connect these ideas back to my arguments? Do I remind the reader, at appropriate moments, how my examples refer back to my arguments? Do I account for other explanations or opinions, and, if so, do I explain why I don’t defend those explanations instead? Is my vocabulary suited to my ideas, arguments, and explanations? Is my style clear, focused, and impressive to read? Is my essay free of distracting grammatical errors or typos?
Due March 29
Your first essay detailed and explained the experience of visiting the New York Historical Society’s exhibition on slavery. One of the purposes of the assignment was to intimately engage with the objects and representations of the past. This was similar in purpose to your interview with an older relative. Together, the two experiences connect through a desire to understand the past as a space and place that produced the present, even if the people or events that produced the present are now invisible or forgotten. The representation of slavery, like your relative’s memories, is a type of “knowledge” that we can use to understand the initial “shock” of an experience. Experience and knowledge form the large and small events that embed themselves in the history of our identity.
One of your ongoing goals in this course is to try and develop your own language to describe, sensitize, and comprehend the effects of this “shock” and “knowledge” in different contexts. In this sense, you must expand your role as witness to that of scholar. A scholar, for our purposes, is a person committed to explaining, re-defining, and revising previous understandings of war, conflict, memory, and identity. This delicate and sensitive task requires you to collect information from different mediums, sources, and perspectives in order to write from the greatest possible position of authority on the topic.
For this assignment, you will become a scholar of two different films that try to imagine war. The assignment requires that you watch two different kinds of war films: a film that explores the experience of conflict, and a film that explores the aftermath of conflict. Your must explain both what the films say and how they say it. You will have to situate the films in their original historical context, mostly by summarizing who produced the films, why they were made, and how audiences reacted to them at the time they were released. Your ultimate purpose for the essay must assert an argument about what film more effectively represents the complex experience of war and conflict: the film that shows war, or the film that shows its aftermath? This argument must be stated clearly in your first paragraph, and the rest of the essay will support your assertion, and provide your readers with information about your films.
In order to support your assertion, you will have to follow the instructions above by paying close attention to how the films plot their narrative, or story. To accomplish this, you must first summarize exactly what you believe the film says. Use the following questions to help guide you through the process of the assignment. The essay will require a minimum amount of research, a bibliography, and should refer, when possible, to texts and ideas from our course.
Essay Two Outline Questions
Introduction: What two films am I writing about? What are my thoughts about the narrative of each individual film? What do these narratives have in common? What do these narratives not have in common? What film, for me, is more effective at communicating the experience of war and conflict? What are my reasons for believing this? How can I prove why I believe this? Do I state my reasons clearly?
Remember, you are not trying to prove whether all war films about the war experience or its aftermath are better than all others. You are only speaking for two films you watched, or any other films you’ve seen and may aid your argument.
Supportive Paragraphs (Historical Info): Do I clearly and factually provide information about the historical environment for each film I watched? Does the information I summarize provide the names of the director and producer(s) of the films? Do I name the year it was released? Do I summarize two or three reviews of the film from major national publications or websites? Do I provide enough contextual information about the actual war the film references and represents? Do I understand enough about that conflict to accurately describe its relationship to this film? Do I organize my information about these two films in separate, organized paragraphs? Do I cite my sources correctly within my sentences?
Remember, how you organize this essay is up to you—you may talk first only about one film and then the other, or you may want to switch going back and forth at different times to prove your point better. It’s up to you.
Supportive Paragraphs (Narrative and Structure): Do I identify and explain the principal characters and their relationship to the overall narrative? Do I explain what character(s) the film wants audiences to identify with? Do I explain how the film achieves this identification, and do I emphasize the places where this is relevant to my argument? Do I explain what I believe the narrative of the film means? Do I explain why I believe this story is effective or non-effective according to my argument? Do I explain my reasons clearly? Do I explain the key moments of the film when they’re relevant to my argument?
When I discuss key moments of the film’s narrative, do I discuss how the structure of the film works—do I explain point of view, do I describe the editing, and do I describe the location of the camera? Do I describe any other special effects necessary to the film’s representation of the narrative? Do I explain how these techniques relate to my argument about what film ‘works’ better to prove its point?
Conclusion: Am I confident that, up to this point, my reader already understands what film I find more effective and why? Am I confident, up to this point, that my readers understand my reasons for choosing the film I find more effective at communicating the experience of war? Am I confident that I have explained my reasons for my argument using organized paragraphs that reference key moments of each film, and explain how the films create those key moments? Am I confident that my vocabulary goes beyond “effective” or “not effective” when I describe these reasons—in other words, am I confident that I have invented my own language to describe what these films say, and how?
Does my conclusion go beyond re-stating the ideas in my introduction? Does my conclusion take the opportunity to connect my ideas to other ideas from the course, or from other texts? Can my conclusion reasonably connect back to previous assignments? Does my conclusion make connections to other situations I have knowledge about, either from the news or from my own experiences? Does my conclusion offer the reader something new to consider besides what I’ve already said? Do I finally conclude the essay leaving the reader conscious of my style, intelligence, and insight? Do I use the conclusion as an appropriate place to show-off my knowledge and make insightful comments about the broader implications or contexts of my subject?
Clarity, Organization, and Flow: As I guide the reader through my essay, do I emphasize the ideas I want readers to remember? Do I connect these ideas back to my arguments? Do I remind the reader, at appropriate moments, how my examples refer back to my arguments? Do I account for other explanations or opinions, and, if so, do I explain why I don’t defend those explanations instead? Is my vocabulary suited to my ideas, arguments, and explanations? Is my style clear, focused, and impressive to read? Is my essay free of distracting grammatical errors or typos?
posted by Jrc at 2:42 PM
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