ESSAY ASSIGNMENT on Conformity, Civilization, & Transformation
Use Kafka, and at least one other text: Freud (Dreams, Civilization), Genesis, Darwin, Conrad, Hamlet, graphic novels (Crumb p.981 or Kuper p.988), poems, Frederick Karl, Power in the Classroom, Paolo Freire, Kafka’s letters, (p.978-980), etc.
You are also encouraged to include a PERSONAL INTERVIEW with a grandparent, parent, or somone of that generation about the pressures they felt to conform at your age.
By the conclusion, make this essay personal, using 'I,' to explore the pressure on you and your generation to conform and the costs involved.
You are also encouraged to include a PERSONAL INTERVIEW with a grandparent, parent, or somone of that generation about the pressures they felt to conform at your age.
By the conclusion, make this essay personal, using 'I,' to explore the pressure on you and your generation to conform and the costs involved.
Due Date: Sunday March 13 before midnight (or sooner, Wed. March 9)
Requirements for the Essay:
· 3- 5 pages: at least 2 ½ pages, double-spaced, carefully edited, mostly error-free, no fragments, typos, etc.
· Proper MLA parenthetical documentation, header, first-page info, and works cited page
· Uploaded with works cited page to Turnitin.com by midnight on date due (Sun. March 13)
· Works Cited should include Kafka, perhaps a Personal Interview, and any other works consulted, such as Freud, Darwin, Conrad, etc.
· Inclusion of analysis of the social pressure for conformity expected of you and your generation
· A clear, debatable point or claim (optionally using the ‘it appears…however’ structure)
· Evidence of your own clear thinking and analysis about society’s pressure on the individual to conform
Some ideas to get you thinking:
1. What mechanisms does society have to try to impose more conformity?
2. What motivates individuals to conform (or not to)? Is there a personal cost for both decisions?
3. Which are more dangerous for society, conformists or nonconformists? Why? Give examples.
4. Explore your own family’s, community’s, and society’s expectations for you to conform. How is that subtle pressure communicated? How does it feel to you? What are the pros and cons for you to comply?
5. Explore the gap between what we profess to be and what we really are in Kafka and personally.
6. Develop an essay including Kafka, other examples, and a personal example that explores and takes a stand on how society and the individual are in conflict about how much conformity is necessary and how those conflicts are resolved (or not resolved, but always in tension).
7. Optional: Explore whether protagonists undergo metamorphosis, transformation, and change
