SENIOR CONFERENCE 2007-2008 PLEASE KEEP ME HANDY!
To: Senior English Majors
From: Gus Stadler, Chair
Re: THE MOST IMPORTANT MEMO THE YEAR (almost)
Date: September 7, 2007
Once you have decided your course load for the semester, it will be time to
start thinking about English 399b, affectionately known as Senior Conference.
Read this letter carefully and remember to keep it for future reference; you’ll
be returning to it for help throughout the year.
You can always access this document electronically by using this web address:
http://www.haverford.edu/engl/WebPage/seniorconf.html, or you can just follow
the link Senior Conference on the department’s home page on the web.
GETTING STARTED
It is already time to settle on a topic for your Senior Essay. It is time as
well to determine who will act as your faculty consultant for this project.
Enclosed you will find a list of faculty consultants, with a general indication
of the fields in which we specialize. In the next few weeks, please talk to
any or all of us about your topic for Senior Essay. Do not hesitate to gather
ideas from those whose fields seem outside your chosen topic. Note that with
this letter I enclose a form asking you to express your area of interest and
your first, second, and third choice of faculty consultant, after you have consulted
with all your choices. Please return the completed form to me as soon as possible,
and no later than October 5th. Please do not e-mail your response: put this
form in the mailbox marked “Stadler” in Woodside 100.
In indicating your topic on the form I am sending you, be as specific as possible.
If you have a very definite idea already, let me know (e.g. “Who (or What)
Speaks?: Discerning the Subject in Three Stories from La Frontera (Anaya, Anzaldua,
Cisneros).” Or you can say something less formal: “I’m interested
in looking very closely at images of windows in at least one of Virginia Woolf’s
novels, maybe Mrs. Dalloway, and I’d also like to talk about her essays.”
If you only have a vague notion, you may indicate a general area of interest
(“I want to work on ghosts in Puritan texts”), but you should use
this opportunity to focus your thinking as sharply as you can. I cannot stress
one thing enough: you must talk to the faculty members you wish to work with
before you complete the form.
You may not choose a faculty consultant who is not on the list I am sending
you. However, if you wish to avail yourself of the expertise of someone not
on the list--in another department, or teaching a departmental course this semester,
or at Bryn Mawr--and if that person is willing, you may of course talk about
the project with other faculty. And remember to share your ideas with each other,
for your peers are perhaps the most important resource you have. We will need
to assign a roughly equivalent number of students to each faculty consultant.
I will make the final assignments as soon as the forms are
in. As soon as you have been assigned to a faculty consultant, you must arrange
a meeting to discuss your project. By October 26th, you need
to send me a two-line description of your topic, approved by your faculty consultant.
(I will send you forms for this task, by way of reminder.)
USE OUR LIBRARY
There will be a required meeting for seniors, at 6:00 p.m. in the Philips Wing
of the library, either on November 6th and 7th. You must attend
one of these meetings. Please stop by Woodside 100, or send an e-mail to “chenry”
to sign up for the evening you wish to attend.
By December 7th, you must prepare a brief page or two describing
your proposed project together with a short bibliography (5-10 titles) of relevant
primary and critical sources, and submit it to your faculty consultant. In developing
this short bibliography, work closely with your consultant, who will help to
steer you away from sources irrelevant to your project or unlikely to prove
useful to you, and toward those sources most likely to help you in shaping and
sharpening your own reading and thinking. Early in the Spring term, by February
4th, you should complete a detailed annotated bibliography of relevant
critical and theoretical sources for your project, and submit this document
to your faculty consultant. These annotations should provide a set of working
notes toward the purpose and direction of your own essay. You should point out
how certain sources will help you to locate and to advance your own argument
and you should define positions that are unlike your own, which your own work
will effectively challenge. You might find it helpful to divide the bibliography
into two parts-- "likely to be used"/"unlikely to be used,"
or "important to my argument"/"unimportant to my argument."
What's critical here is to make this stage a genuinely helpful one. The annotations
should be engaged and productive.
Please note these other important deadlines: February 15th
for the outline and 4-5 pages of draft, and March 21st for
the completed rough draft. The final draft of your senior essay is due at
4 p.m., Thursday, April 10th. NO extensions to this final deadline
will be given.
THE ESSAY
The department tries to be flexible in the range of topics undertaken. You should
begin by thinking through your own interests and desires; then, in consultation
with the faculty, an appropriate project will be determined. Try to be creative
and flexible yourself: remember to consider topics and authors from earlier
centuries. You may do a “creative writing” project only if you already
have been admitted to and will be completing the creative writing concentration.
The essay should be roughly 25-30 pages in length. Your readers are not absolute
about such matters; however, this length is normative, and any essay that is
significantly shorter or longer ought to be exceptional (in every sense).
In your essay, we expect evidence of some serious engagement with secondary
materials, whether critical or theoretical. As I have said, you will begin to
develop a bibliography of appropriate critical readings with your faculty consultant
early on. While you needn’t overtly fashion your essay as a response to
this material, it is expected that you will be writing with an awareness of
your relationship to a critical community that both predates and parallels your
own interpretive performance. As noted above, there will be meetings with Michelle
Oswell, our college librarian, to discuss resources and research methods on
either November 6th and 7th. She has asked me to give her your topics before
the meeting, so that you can be assured that her introduction to the materials
will be directly relevant to the concerns of this year’s essays. To take
full advantage of that meeting, you will want to come with well-formed questions
about your topic.
Those of you doing a creative writing project will be asked to produce a critical
introduction to your work of 10-12 pages, for which a bibliography will also
be prerequisite. The English department has on file a packet of materials related
to this requirement (contemporary writers on writing). Contact Carol Henry in
Woodside Cottage for the material.
Your completed essay will be read by two faculty members, your consultant and
one other department member. They will agree on a grade for the essay. Your
final grade for senior conference is based on the essay grade and the oral examination.
ORAL COMPREHENSIVE EXAMS
At the end of the year, you will take a one-hour oral exam covering your experience
of the major. I tell you about this now not to alarm you but to help you build
toward that experience throughout the year. The first half hour of the exam
will concern your essay; the second half hour will concern your course work
in the major. To refine the latter part of the exam, we will ask you to produce
a list of works for which you will be responsible. This will happen toward the
close of second semester, but it might be useful to begin thinking about this
now. (Ideally, you began this process over the summer after receiving my letter
in the spring.) The following criteria apply: two works from each of seven courses
taken for credit in the major, two literary works and two critical works from
each term of Junior Seminar. This amounts to 22 works, at least four of which
will be critical texts. Sounds like a lot at first, but you will discover as
you begin to look over your course work how many more works you might be able
to choose.
By “works,” we mean a novel, play or long poem (e.g. Paradise Lost);
or, if you are assembling material of a small scale, we suggest you include
at least three short stories or four reasonably complex lyric poems as the equivalent
of one “work.” A film course would be represented by two films,
each paired with a relevant piece of film theory or criticism would represent
a film course. If you are choosing material from a creative writing course,
you should be able to include literary material in the public domain that was
the basis for class discussion of craft, style, etc. The list is to be typed.
Preparing this list should be fun. Remember to ask yourself why you have selected
the particular works in question (or better yet, why have they chosen YOU?).
Try to group titles under two or three topics, or themes. Your examination is
likely to be a more rewarding experience for all concerned if you--and we with
your help--have thought in these terms.
You will be examined by three faculty members: your faculty consultant, your
second reader (whenever possible), and one other member of the department. These
exams are not designed to trick or to intimidate you, but to help you to realize
how much you have learned. Often the most exciting exams are really conversations
that help you to see the creative power you can generate through the knowledge
you already have. Please don’t worry: your faculty consultants and other
members of the Department will be able to answer any questions you have about
this process next term.
ENGLISH 399B - 2007-2008
CALENDAR
October 5th: Deadline for submission of essay topic and preferences for faculty consultant to Gus Stadler. Deposit form in box marked “Stadlerin Woodside 100.
October 26th Two-line description of project, approved by faculty
consultant, submitted to Gus Stadler. Deposit TYPED or NEATLY PRINTED form in
box marked “Stadler” in Woodside 100. Please also e-mail this two
line description directly to Carol Henry “chenry@haverford.edu.”
Use subject heading “Sr. Project” for the mailing and remember to
give your full name.
November 6th & 7th: Meeting for all seniors with faculty
and Michelle Oswell, reference librarian, in the Philips Wing of the library
at 6:00 P.M.. Sign up for a date by sending an email to chenry .
December 7th: 1-2 page description of topic and thesis statement
due, with short
bibliography (5-10 titles) of relevant primary and critical sources.
Note: This bibliography goes directly to your advisor.
February 4th: Detailed annotated bibliography due. (Directly
to your advisor)
February 15th: Full outline and 4-5 draft pages of essay due.
March 21st: Friday, immediately after Spring Break, due date
for completed rough draft.
April 10th: Final draft of essay due, 4 p.m. PLEASE
NOTE: THIS DATE IS AN ABSOLUTE DEADLINE
.
April 21st: Oral Exam lists are due – Woodside 100
Apr.30th & May 1st: Senior presentations.
May 5,6.7: Oral Comprehensive Examinations.