Essay

AMS 204: First Exam

Deadline and procedures for turning in the exam:

The exam is due by 5:00 PM, Monday, September 28. You’ll submit the exam through

Turnitin on the course’s Blackboard page. If you have any issues with the submission, just let me

know. You will lose a letter grade each day that the exam is late, so take care to turn it in on time.

If you’d like to talk with me about the exam, just email me ([email protected]), and we can set

up a Zoom meeting. If you want to meet about the exam, let me know by no later than 11:00 AM,

Friday, September 25.

Policy on academic misconduct:

This is a reminder that students are expected to be familiar with and adhere to the university’s

official Academic Misconduct Policy, available at: https://provost.ua.edu/academic-misconduct/.

Some specific things to keep in mind for this take-home exam:

- Adhere to the university’s policies regarding plagiarism.

- You are forbidden to use any outside sources for these essays.

- This is not a group or collaborative project. Do not work with other students--either

electronically or in person--on the essays.

- If you have questions about any aspect of these policies, ask me.

Citations:

You need to cite all of the information in your essays. (On the papers, you just cite quotes;

for these exams, you cite all of the information in your essays.) When you use information or a quote

from one of the readings, identify the reading and page number(s) in parentheses at the end of the

sentence(s) containing the information or quote. Be sure that your citations include specific page

numbers. In the body of your essays, you should have citations every couple of sentences.

Writing the essays:

This is a take-home exam, so use all that time to write these essays carefully and thoughtfully.

Be sure that you have proofread and revised your essays before you submit them. Be sure that your

essays address the relevant readings for each topic.

I will evaluate your essays based on: the clarity and logic of their organization; the quality of

their writing and analysis; and their use of the relevant readings. (You should find the guides that I’ve

included in the papers folder helpful when it comes to the grammatical, stylistic, and organizational

elements of academic writing.)

Shoot for around 3 double-spaced pages for each essay. (If you’re under this, you’re probably

not going to be addressing the topic thoroughly or with enough detail; if you’re way over this, you’re

probably not going to have a clear, focused, and organized essay.)

Essay topics:

Write an essay on both of the following topics. You are writing two essays—one for each topic.

Combine your essays into one document/file to submit them through Turnitin.

1- Write an essay that discusses the significance of language in Western studies. Your essay should

analyze the use of language to construct ideas about the West as a distinct American region, and it

should discuss the use of language to depict interactions among people living in the West.

Be sure that your essay draws (at least) upon the following readings:Debra Magpie Earling,

“What We See”; Mark Twain, “Buck Fanshaw’s Funeral”; Owen Wister, The Virginian; and Wallace

Stegner, “Thoughts in a Dry Land,” and “Living Dry.”

2- Write an essay that discusses the significance of mythology in Western studies. Your essay should

analyze the use of mythology to construct ideas about the West as a distinct American region, and it

should discuss the ways mythology has shaped policy as well as lived experience in the West.

Be sure that your essay draws upon (at least) the following readings: Walter Nugent, “Where

Is the American West? Report on a Survey”; Patricia Nelson Limerick, “The Realization of the

American West”; Larry McMurtry, “How the West Was Won or Lost”; and Wallace Stegner,

“Thoughts in a Dry Land,” and “Living Dry.”