Hum3

Applied Humanities

Exploration Document Course Project Part One: Complete Your Rough Draft 3 Module Three: Examining the Humanities / Page 3.2.4 Course Project: Part One: Complete Your Rough Draft On this page: 0 of 6 attempted (0%) Objective: Use writing templates to continue drafting the first part of your course project, the exploration document.

Now that you have several elements under your belt, this page will guide you through all but one of the remaining elements. The final element (your reference list) will be covered later in this chapter, so it is not included here.

For the writing templates on this page, try to answer all of the prompts once. Then, after you’ve saved a first draft in each template, scroll back up to the top of the page and start rereading your responses. This gap between writing and reviewing will help you see the work with fresher eyes and understand how these pieces fit together.

Analyze Your Works

In this section, you will use the writing templates to analyze and compare your two works in relation to your chosen theme.

Remember, you don’t need to tell your reader every single thing you found. Now’s the time to make like a chef and prepare a beautiful plate with just the best bites from each of your resources—like research sushi. As you look back over your research notes, what were the highlights of the historical context? What surprised you, what delighted you, and what seemed especially important?

If you can find a good, brief, quotable passage from a source, please include it in your responses below. Just be sure to use quotes around the words you copy and paste (or retype) from your source. Then add the words around the quotes to provide context for your readers.

If there aren’t any suitable passages, summarize the most important and most interesting selections, and note the sources from which you are summarizing. By pulling from your research and clearly saying that you got something from another writer, you can add the weight of that scholar’s study and expertise to your argument.

Discuss the Historical Context of Your Works

Let’s start by discussing the relationship between each cultural artifact and its respective historical context. In other words, under what circumstances was each artifact created? For the historical-context element, be sure to do the following:

Describe the historical context for each of your works, based on information from your resources. Situate each of your works in the time period and setting in which it was created. Make sure you are basing your response on the information from your resources and not just on your own opinions.

Discuss the Historical Context of Your Works Writing Template

You didn’t fully complete a previous writing template.

Return to page 2.4.8 to complete the writing template.

Evaluate Your Response

When you return for the second pass on this element, ask yourself these questions:

Have I pulled from one or more sources? Have I clearly indicated where I took exact phrases or sentences from another author by including quotation marks and a citation? Have I clearly indicated where I am summarizing the points, ideas, or insights from another author? Have I made any claims or shared any insights that did not come from my research? (If so, you may want to remove those. The point of this element is to ground your claims in what your sources say. Unless you are in a very unique situation, possibly involving time travel, your personal insights on the historical context aren’t as credible as those of the experts who wrote your sources.)

Compare Your Two Works

For this next element, you’re going to consider how your selected theme is expressed in the two works you are comparing. Just like the historical-context element, this one is about your research. Keep in mind the following points:

If at all possible, give explicit attention to at least one example of how your two works addressed the theme similarly, and at least one example of how they did it differently. (This makes life much easier for your grader.)

Make sure you are basing your response on the information from your resources and not solely on your own opinions.

Compare Your Two Works Writing Template

You didn’t fully complete a previous writing template.

Return to page 2.4.8 to complete the writing template.

Evaluate Your Response

On your second pass through this page, ask yourself:

Have I included at least one similarity? Have I included at least one difference? Have I covered the most important information? Have I attributed every claim (or almost every claim) I make to a credible authority from my research?

Discuss the Medium of Each Work

In this last research-heavy paragraph, you want to use your sources to inform your reader about the ways in which each artist, writer, or composer uses his or her medium. For this element, be sure to do the following:

Describe the artistic medium, such as the type of literature, music, or sculpture, through which each work was created. Discuss how the medium of each work communicates some aspect of its meaning.

Discuss the Medium of Each Work Writing Template

You didn’t fully complete a previous writing template.

Return to page 2.4.8 to complete the writing template.

Evaluate Your Response

For this element, as with the historical-context element, you can build on the work, insights, and words of people who have spent their careers thinking about how music,

words, shapes, and colors present meaning.

On your second pass through this page, ask yourself:

Have I referred very specifically to the artist’s use of the medium? (For visual art, the medium might include the materials used and how they were used—color, line, shape, juxtaposition, balance, asymmetry, and the like. For music, this might include timbre, orchestration, tempo, dynamics, key, and so on. For literature, the medium is the type of literary work, such as poetry, short story, letter, or biography.) Use at least two specific examples to help your reader see the choices the artist made in this specific medium to create meaning in this work.

State Your Thesis

You’ve done a lot of research. While you were answering the above questions, you probably found some gaps that made you return to your research or even start looking for additional resources. This is all part of the process.

Now, after doing all this reading and carefully considering the opinions of others, it’s time to form an opinion of your own and declare your thesis. Your thesis is a claim you make about these two works and the theme you selected. Given those constraints, your thesis is likely to fall into one of several patterns or forms:

“Work A and work B both express theme X.” “The theme of X is presented in very different ways in work A and work B.” “We can learn something important about theme X by examining work A and work B.”

You may have another pattern in mind, but regardless of the one you choose, your thesis will need to meet the following criteria:

It must make a claim—that is, it must be something a reasonable person could disagree with. It must relate to your theme and your two artifacts. It must be specific, something that you can use evidence to defend and that someone else could use different evidence to argue against.

State Your Thesis Writing Template

You didn’t fully complete a previous writing template.

Return to page 2.4.8 to complete the writing template.

Evaluate Your Response

On your second pass through this page, ask yourself:

If I walked into a crowded restaurant, got the attention of all the diners, and proceeded to declare my thesis loudly and confidently, would people think, “That’s quite a bold claim; I look forward to hearing how you substantiate it”? (If the answer is yes, you’re off to a good start.)

Consider Your Audience

In this section, you will use the writing templates to identify and analyze the audience for your final presentation.

Granted, the restaurant full of attentive diners is a stretch. But can you think of who might actually be interested in your argument, or in the theme that you’re exploring? Or maybe you can think of a group that would be interested in how the principles of the humanities can teach essential skills to people who work with humans—a group of cops, for example, who take a day to go to the Met in New York City.

Identify Your Ideal Audience

This exploration document (which you are almost done drafting) is designed to prepare you to build a presentation. If you could give that presentation to anyone, who would it be? For this element, be sure to do the following:

Identify your ideal audience. Explain why the audience would be interested in (or how they would benefit from learning about) the theme, works, or humanities analysis in your presentation.

Identify Your Ideal Audience Writing Template

You didn’t fully complete a previous writing template.

Return to page 2.4.8 to complete the writing template.

Evaluate Your Response

On your second pass through this page, ask yourself:

Have I identified an audience? Have I explained why I think that audience would be interested in my presentation?

Make Adjustments for Your Audience

Here’s an amazing thing about communication: What you say depends on the person you’re talking to. Maybe that seems obvious, but think about all the research and writing you’ve done so far. Sure, you know you’re supposed to be writing for someone who is new to the topic, but deep down you’re aware that your instructor will be the one reading your work. Forget that for a moment. Think instead about an audience who would be interested in what you’ve learned. With that audience in mind, you should be doing some sudden recalculations.

You’ll need to design your project in a way that brings your audience up to speed on your works. These works might be totally new to them, and your analysis almost certainly will be. How much do they know about the principles of the humanities? Will you need to defend the very idea that art can contain a theme? To connect to this audience, should you talk at length about how the medium is used in these artifacts, or skip over that explanation as quickly as possible? What specialized terms (e.g., timbre) will you need to introduce and define to get your point across, and which ones are unnecessary and should not be used?

These are some of the questions you’ll need to be thinking about as you prepare your presentation. But for now, just focus on the following requirements:

Describe how you will tailor your presentation so that it will be understandable to your specific audience. Include specific examples of what you will include or exclude from your presentation in order to tailor it for your audience. Explain why these edits need to be made for your audience.

Make Adjustments for Your Audience Writing Template

You didn’t fully complete a previous writing template.

Return to page 2.4.8 to complete the writing template.

Evaluate Your Response

On your second pass through this page, ask yourself:

Have I clearly defined an audience? Have I done a thorough job of empathizing with them and anticipating how this presentation will sound to them? Have I described specific choices I should make to tailor my message to this audience?

Okay, that’s it. Head back up to the top of the page for your second read-through. When you get back to this sentence, you’re most likely done for the day. Seriously, you will want to sleep before you start the next page—you’ll need fresh eyes to focus well.

close