English162W: Literature and Place
Professor Zino
Paper Assignment #2
March 24, 2011
TASK: Choose ONE of these options and write a 5-page essay that responds to the prompt.
This paper builds on the thinking you did in your previous paper in two ways: first, it asks
you to move from considering literary elements such as character, plot, setting, or narrative
point of view, to focusing on more abstract elements like SYMBOL and THEME; secondly,
it incorporates an additional reading you have not yet seen in order to extend your discussion
of how the notions of “space” and “place” that Tuan introduces in Space and Place: The
Perspective of Experience apply to a specific literary work.
1. In his chapter on “Mythical Space and Place,” Yi-Fu Tuan identifies “two principal kinds
of mythical space”: “In the one,” he writes, “mythical space is a fuzzy area of defective
knowledge surrounding the empirically known; it frames pragmatic space. In the other it is
the spatial component of a world view, a conception of localized values within which people
carry on their practical activities” (86). In line with this description, anthropologist Clifford
Geertz describes religious rituals (he uses the term “religious” broadly), as symbolic actions
that “establish powerful, pervasive, long-lasting moods and motivations in men” (59). In
other words, such rituals are “mythical spaces.” Focusing on symbolic rituals or actions in
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” (1835, 1846), Shirley Jackson’s “The
Lottery” (1948), OR “Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” (1983), use Geertz and Tuan’s ideas
about “religion as a mythical space” to discuss what you understand to be the most important
symbolic actions, rituals, and/or objects within the story.
2. “Space is historical if it has direction or a privileged perspective. Maps are ahistorical,
landscape paintings are historical,” Tuan observes in “Time in Experiential Space” (122). In
his phenomenological approach to thinking about mapping, Edward Casey extends these
observations in order to discuss the importance of “land,” a middle region between space and
place through which we experience a specific, local environment. In each of the following
stories, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Babylon Revisited” (1931), Ernest Hemingway’s “The Snows
of Kilimanjaro” (1936, 1938), and Margaret Atwood’s “Death by Landscape” (1991), land
and landscape plays a prominent role in illustrating a relationship between time and place.
Using the outside readings to help inform and broaden your thinking, create an argument in
which you articulate how a relationship between landscape, time and place functions as a
theme of one of these stories. **Note: If you select this prompt, find a map of the literal place
that is described in the story (or a landscape painting by one of the listed painters, if you
choose the Atwood Story). As a “postscript” to your essay, include the image with a caption
about how it adds to or competes with your discussion of landscape in the story.**
FORMAL REQUIREMENTS
 5 full pages, double-spaced, pages numbered and stapled (please!)
 MLA style in-text parenthetical citations
 “Works Cited” section at end of paper in MLA format
 Careful editing for grammar, spelling, and formatting
 A creative title that gives a reader some clue about the argument of the paper will be
appreciated!
DUE DATES
 Complete draft due in class on Thursday, March 31st – PLEASE BRING THREE
(3) HARD COPIES IN PREPARATION FOR CLASSMATE INTERVIEWS and
email me a copy of your draft, as an attached Microsoft Word file, to
Dominique.Zino@qc.cuny.edu. I will respond to drafts electronically.

Final paper due, posted as a Microsoft Word file on your blog, on Thursday, April
7th by 2 p.m. (Please try to avoid cutting and pasting the draft onto the blog, as this
will make it difficult to leave you marginal comments. Use the “add media” icon
instead and upload the file from your computer. If this presents a problem, please
email me the paper as an attachment.)
Pre-WRITING STAGES FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT, including **revised homework for
Tuesday, March 29th** and **revised schedule for March 29th – April 7th **
Read the assignment sheet and both accompanying texts carefully, marking passages you
want to return to, passages you think you understand, and passages you find confusing.
(These readings are challenging—do not be discouraged by their difficulty.) With what
understanding you have of the secondary texts, return to the assignment sheet, consider your
options, and select a prompt to pursue. Using the template from the last project and making
necessary changes to your approach in order to include spaces for the key texts for this
assignment (the Tuan chapter, the secondary reading, and the piece of short fiction), create an
IDEA MAP that represents your first round of thoughts about the direction(s) your essay
might take. (These maps can include questions about possible connections about which you
may feel unsure.) Begin, in the center of your map, with a phrase that will lend your thinking
some focus, such as “Symbols in ‘Young Goodman Brown’” or “The Landscape of ‘Babylon
Revisited.’” This idea map will be due in class when we return on Tuesday, March 29 th.
Please bring THREE copies.
Also, please complete reading assignment originally assigned for March 31st—“The
Things They Carried” and “Intimate Experiences of Place” for this Tuesday, March
29th. ALL BLOG POSTS NEXT WEEK WILL BE DUE ON TUESDAY
(regardless of your normal response group).
On Tuesday, March 29th, we will spend half of the class discussions the excerpt from “The
Things They Carried” and the other half working with your idea maps. Please arrive
prepared.
On Thursday, March 31st, we will conduct peer interviews about your drafts.
On Tuesday, April 5th, we will still discuss James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” in class.
However, this week, we will SKIP the reading responses to leave time to work on the papers.
You will email me your paper on April 7th, though we will not meet in person.
Finally, on Tuesday, April 12th, we will return to the original schedule, as it appears on your
syllabus, and the normal reading response groups.
GRADING CRITERIA for paper #2
An A-range paper (9-10) will present a clear, creative, and careful method for analyzing
“place” and “space” in line with the constraints of the prompt. The strongest papers will
develop an analysis of important scenes or details of the story as the centerpiece of a
well-developed discussion that stays focused on the task described in the prompt. The
argument will concisely but fluidly integrate phrases or ideas from the secondary
readings with a discussion of relevant evidence from the story. It will be carefully edited
for grammar, spelling, and proper formatting.
A B-range paper (7-8) will make a clear claim about the way that some understanding of
“space” and/or “place” identified in the prompt can be used to interpret a specific element
of the short story, though this claim may need to be developed through further evidence
from the story itself OR through a more carefully organized discussion that analyzes the
overall meaning or significance of the story.
A C-range paper (5-6) will discuss a literary element in a short story, and then discuss
one idea from a secondary source that seems relevant, but will not integrate these two
discussions in order to present a developed argument about how some aspect of “space”
and “place” figure into the development of the story. Some grammatical errors may
interfere with the clarity of the paper.
A D-range paper (3-4) will summarize a story without attempting to integrate theoretical
explanations of “space” and “place.” The paper may lack organization and need to be
more carefully edited.
A failing paper (1-2) will make no attempt to follow any of the lines of thought outlined
in the prompts and will present a brief, undeveloped reaction to a piece of short fiction.