Beginnings: The Namesake, Chapters 1-5, Due Wednesday, October 6th.
Directions for First Seminar by Jim Harnish
Make sure you budget time for reading. If you read one page in two minutes figure you will
need two and a half hours, at a minimum, to read through this section once. If you come across a
theme of your particular interest, read it twice or even three times to fully retain it and to have a
deeper understanding of the text.
As you read you should underline, highlight, note in the margin or index in a reading journal.
Specific terms, sentences, or paragraphs that strike you as important, interesting, confusing, or
simply those you want to share with others in the seminar.
Make a list of new words, names, phrases that you looked up in a dictionary. A good reader will
have a dictionary available and look up several words in each section of the reading. Plan on
documenting five words per seminar paper and their definition.
You should identify major concepts the author uses and how she labels and defines them. What
does she mean when using themes such as: identity, assimilation, names, etc.
Read Actively
As you read the novel, underline, highlight, and annotate (make notes about) sentences and
passages that seem to illustrate important themes (see below) or raise questions. Be particularly
aware of communication across cultures—defined here as intergenerational, ethnicity, setting,
traditions, or other divides or differences. Notice where the narrative or dialogue makes you
think about our discussions of identity or the list of Intercultural Communication principles in
LaRay M. Barna’s piece. As always be sure to make note of unfamiliar words or concepts and to
look these up when you can or to try and use cues within the text to figure out what they mean.
Your objective is more than just getting through these pages and more than just a passive read to
generally familiarize yourself with the topic. Rather your purpose should be to explore this
work, to see what you can discover or what the other would want you to underline? To do this
you will need to first understand what the author is saying. Why did he/she write it? Where are
the major questions or problems that the author is trying to address? Review the whole
section/book, including title and subtitle, Acknowledgements, Table of Contents, chapter titles,
Index Notes, Bibliography, even the back cover.
To make the seminar work, you will need to be able to point to specific passages and explain in
your own words what they mean and why they are important.
Seminar Paper Preparation
From each chapter prioritize five of the most important passages you underlined, marking them
1, 2, and 3, etc.
Then choose one passage from each chapter and copy it exactly including quote marks and page
number. Format for this is from Modern Language Association (MLA) is to put the author’s
name and page number in parenthesis after the quote marks, but before the period. Example:
“Blah, blah, blah” (Harnish, 23).
Set these five quotes aside and begin to think critically about how these quotes connect to larger
overarching themes in the novel. These quotes are going to be the meat of your seminar paper;
they will support your content and argument. Make sure every idea you bring to seminar is
supported by a quote/text. The quotes you choose to focus on will not only be the focal point of
your paper, but will also be used in Seminar to create discussion and reflection.
Seminar Paper
PIE–Point, Illustration, Explanation— Make a statement that is the point (P) to answer the
question, weave your illustrations (I) which are usually direct quotations to show your point
into the explanations (E) and analysis of the idea you are discussing. In these paragraphs you
are answering a questions and showing what the text means. You must use MLA forms of intext citation to document the page numbers of your direct quotations or any close
paraphrases. Your writing should weave your quotations into the explanations carefully
and smoothly. {See these paragraphs as pieces of a possible longer essay.}
Seminar Paper Example in PIE Format
Theme: Family/Generational Divide
P(Point): Gogol, now Nikhil, is in college in New Haven and feeling the freedom of life on his
own. The first semester of his time at college, he begrudgingly agrees to an every other week
visit to his parent’s home.
I(Illustration): “One weekend Gogol makes the mistake of referring to New Haven as home.
‘Sorry, I left it at home,’ he says when his father asks if he remembered to buy the Yale decal his
parents want to paste to the rear window of the car. Ashima is outraged by the remark, dwelling
on it all day. ‘Only three months, and listen to you,’ she says, telling him that after twenty years
in America, she still cannot bring herself to refer to Pemberton Road as home” (Lahiri, 107-108).
E(Explanation): Home is a powerful symbol of the family. In this passage Gogol shows that he
no longer considers his parent’s house his home. Contrasting Gogol’s rejection of that home is
Ashima’s feeling that, in effect, Pemberton Road will never be home. This is one of the most
outstanding parts of the text so far to show the complete rejection of family and culture on
Gogol’s part and the desperate longing on Ashima’s part to hang on to family and culture.
Emotionally, the family divide is almost complete here.
Here is some more information on the techniques of writing a solid academic paper:
Writing about Literature:
(Adapted from The Bedford Handbook, 6th ed. By Diana Hacker)
Introduction: The introduction should give the necessary background and set up the topic of
your essay. Therefore, somewhere in this first paragraph, you should introduce the full name of
the author and the title of the literature being analyzed. In the rest of the essay, the author should
be referred to by last name only. The introduction leads into your central interpretation of the
text which should be stated at the end of this first paragraph—this is your thesis.
Thesis: A thesis is an interpretation/claim about a theme in literature. Therefore, the thesis will
need to be a strong, arguable statement which will then need to be proven in your essay.
Things to avoid in your Thesis:
Too Factual:
As a runaway slave, Jim is in danger from the law.
Too Broad:
In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain criticizes mid-nineteenth-century American society.
Too Vague:
Huckleberry Finn is Twain’s most exciting work.
Acceptable Thesis:
Because Huckleberry Finn is a naïve narrator, his comments on conventional religion are ironic
at every turn, allowing Twain to poke fun at empty piety.
Body Paragraphs:
Your body paragraphs should support your thesis with clear points found in the topic sentences,
supporting illustrations from the text, and analysis/ explanation of how the illustrations support
your points (PIE).
Topic Sentences: The topic sentence is typically the first sentence of your body paragraph, and
it has two main functions: 1. Introduces the main point of your paragraph. 2. Shows how this
point supports/relates back to the thesis.
Things to avoid in your topic sentences:
Personal Opinion:
Huck should not have been so gullible in trusting Tom Sawyer.
Over-generalizations:
People use religion to disguise their own lack of morality.
Plot Summary:
As they drift down the river on a raft, Huck and Jim have many philosophical discussions.
Acceptable Topic Sentence:
The theme of dawning moral awareness is reinforced by the many philosophical discussions
between Huck and Jim as they drift down the river on a raft.
Integrating Quotations:
Quotation with Signal Phrase:
If you are quoting dialogue (the spoken words of a character) in a work of literature, you should
introduce the character who is speaking and provide a context for the spoken words. Use a
signal phrase which names the speaker to incorporate the quotation.
For example: When Josephine begs Louise to open the door, Louise says, “Go away. I am not
making myself ill” (8).
Introduced Quotation:
If you are quoting prose (non-spoken words) rather than dialogue (spoken words of a character)
in a work of literature, there are also ways to smoothly incorporate quotations. One way to do
this is to use an introduced quotation. To do this, first introduce the quote with a complete
statement in your own words. Then, use a colon (:) in order to show that quotation which
follows the colon is an example or further explanation of your statement.
For example: Louise Mallard’s outer appearance clearly reveals her inner qualities: “She was
young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength” (7).
Blended Quotation:
Another way to quote prose is to use a blended quotation. This is when you blend a quotation
into your own sentence. Sometimes, this means that you blend only a part of the original
sentence into your own sentence. Also make sure that your blended sentence is grammatically
correct.
For example: “The patches of blue sky” (7) represent hope in Louise Mallard’s bleak life.
Conclusion:
Your conclusion should sum up the points made in your essay and draw a larger conclusion from
those points although it should not introduce an entirely new or too general topic. In doing this,
you can also refer back to your thesis statement.
Other Literary Conventions to Keep in Mind:
 In writing about literature, it is a convention to write in the present tense.
 Put titles of novels in italics or underline them, and put titles of shorter works in
quotation marks.
 Put quotes within quotes in single quotation marks.
 Put brackets around anything that you need to change within the quote.
 Indent (10 spaces) quotations of more than four lines.
Beginnings: Seminar Paper #1 on The Namesake
Lahiri, Chapters 1-5
Purpose: A short seminar paper is preparation for your seminar. Read the assigned pages in the
book, annotate (mark-up/connect with/analyze) the text, and write the paper to fully participate
and learn from the seminar. Your typed paper is due as seminar begins as part of the group
discussion process—late papers won’t meet the goal of being prepared for the seminar discussion
in our learning community. Turn in the paper after the seminar; we will be evaluating the
papers for clarity, answering a question with an idea and explanations, and using supporting
quotations to illustrate your point. Your paper—including the reflection— will support your
participation in the seminar discussion where we emphasize the following:
What does the text say? What does the text mean? Why is the point important?
Assignment: Look at the questions for The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and decide as you read
to focus on one or two questions in the first half of the novel. Your overall goal as you read
critically and mark up the text is to remember and note the places where you were intrigued,
confused, read words that were beautifully written or found a place where the author is giving
you a view of her world through the characters, setting, point of view, themes, imagery, and
symbolism.
Answer one of the questions below with this general form: PIE–Point, Illustration, and
Explanation.
1. When Gogol is born, the Gangulis meet other Bengali families with small children, and
Ashima finds with the new baby that "perfect strangers, all Americans, suddenly take
notice of her, smiling, congratulating her for what she's done." How, for all of us, do
children change our place in the community, and what we expect from it?
2. Lahiri has said, "The question of identity is always a difficult one, but especially for those
who are culturally displaced, as immigrants are . . . who grow up in two worlds
simultaneously." What do you think Gogol wants most from his life? How is it different
from what his family wants for him, and what they wanted when they first came to
America to start a family?
3. The title The Namesake reflects the struggles Gogol Ganguli goes through to identify
with his unusual names. How does Gogol lose first his public name, his bhalonam, and
then his private pet name, his daknam? How does he try to remake his identity, after
choosing to rename himself, and what is the result?