Category: McCoy Fall 2016

When I used to think about interdisciplinarity, especially last semester, I would think of it with vast enthusiasm. Though I didn’t have a term for it back then, I remember being floored each time I connected one course to another. I felt that I was accumulating a wealth of transcendent knowledge as some themes didn’t seem to be able to contain themselves to one discipline, but instead were woven throughout them all.

With the mysticism of my realizations dissolved and a newfound term to understand these inter-class connections, I was no less enamored with interdisciplinarity this semester than I was last semester. But I’m coming to realize that being irresponsibly enamored with a connection between disciplines can be just as dangerous as we have learned it to be with other human beings. Continue reading “Enamoring Interdisciplinarity”

Today, while I was writing my essay on Zulus, I noticed that I had gotten about three quarters of the way done with my draft, I felt that maybe I was getting a little ahead of myself considering that the entire essay was an analysis of a single chapter heading. I had planned to do much more than that at this point and began to think that if I go in another direction I an make this work. For my essay I had Continue reading “Thinking of Changing Essay Topic”

One novel cannot be written without some form of influence of an outside source or thought. As time goes on, each new work is just a new edition of the past. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms is on its third edition, but each word within this glossary has been collected from more than 300 years as it goes back to the renaissance and even before this time. New Historicism is meant to challenge the idea that history is just “useful ‘background’ to the main business of elucidating the text”( 124 ). The purpose of the history intertwined with the text is to provide a broader spectrum of knowledge. Each definition in The Bedford Glossary has an example from pop culture or past history which can intrigue the reader to want to understand where this example originated. Each person is receiving more knowledge than they know.

New Historicism is also evident in the chapter headings of Zulus. Each chapter heading starts with a new letter, like a glossary, and provides a snapshot of history. To understand what the heading is referring to, the reader must use outside resources to learn from. History and Literature, “neither term is privileged over the other” (123) which is the case for Zulus because without history, this story would not provide a message to the reader, but without the literature, it would be more difficult to connect the reader to the history. By placing history within a society that could be a possible future, it forces the reader to interpret both aspects, history and literature.

The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms is a reference source that locates critical/literary terms both by definition, in history, and with examples. Any words in the definitions that are defined elsewhere in the text are bolded, so that within each definition there are typically several bolded words that can be located elsewhere in the text. This method leads to circularity as one jumps to a bolded word within a definition and in turn has to look up a third definition, all to trace one’s way back to the first definition. As the pages riffle for a while, one wonders if alphabetical order is all it’s hyped up to be, and if things could perhaps be organized into more discrete categories—maybe by time period, writing style, etc.? But many of these would be problematic also.

Perhaps there is no one good way to organize literary terms.

Continue reading “Glossary: Subjective”

In the last few weeks of my senior year AP Literature class, my teacher, Ms. Goodman, talked for 40 minutes a day about how much she hated the passive voice. She went on and on about how students don’t understand the importance of the active voice and how the use of the active voice can strengthen both an argument and a writer’s voice overall.

Ms. Goodman, if you’re reading this for some reason, don’t read this paragraph. The whole lesson seemed unnecessary. I was a good writer. I received A’s in English my entire life without giving this “passive voice” a second thought. I didn’t get it, I was bored, I didn’t understand why I had to read anything by Tolstoy at age seventeen (unrelated, but I really didn’t), and I just wanted to graduate.

(You can start reading again, Ms. Goodman.) As I read Dr. McCoy’s suggestions to improve my most recent essay, my high school English teacher’s weeks of rants echoed in my mind. Suddenly, it clicked. I was finally, finally able to fully realize how important it is to write in an active voice. I could almost hear a sigh of relief coming all the way from Long Island.

The passive voice, which, as mentioned in class, can be explained with the example “Walker is saying” leads to wordiness – a lack of conciseness that makes a piece especially challenging to follow. Instead of using the phrase “Walker is saying,” one can use “Walker says,” or “Walker questions,” or “Walker claims.” Taking out passive state of being verbs does not only lead to cutting out a word or two, but, honestly, sounds smarter.

As an English major and a lover of the English language, my written voice is very important to me. I want to make sure I’m consistently putting my best foot forward in my writing and the way I am communicating with my readers. If working with the active voice and avoiding the passive voice at all costs will bring strength to my argument and my writing (and I’ve seen that happen), I know that I need to put as much time and energy as I can into developing my understanding of the active voice.

While my road to using the active voice will definitely be a journey and a learning experience, I understand now that active voice is an essential part of being a good writer and communicating in the most effective, accessible way.

Also, I’m very grateful that I had to read Tolstoy. Anna Karenina was so great.

 

In light of recently receiving our first essays back, the topic of revision has been rattling around in my head lately. It’s safe to say that most of the class did not expect to have the opportunity to revise and resubmit our essays. To be honest, originally I was not happy about the opportunity and was much more prepared to wash my hands of whatever I wrote and move on. Continue reading “On the Cyclical Nature of Revision”

A dictionary is a tool that has the power to connect cultures and civilizations by weakening the restraints of the very things that make it up, words. A specific word that professor McCoy mentioned in relation to ‘Zulus’ and dictionaries was the term: Abecedarian. We discussed in class that this meant that something was arranged in alphabetical order. However, by practicing the concept of repetition to gain more insight, I researched this term again. The online resource, dictionary.com confirms this definition but also adds something that screamed ‘Zulus!’ right at me.

Continue reading “Unleashing your Abecedarian”