Assignment-Specific Guidelines and Checklist
In addition to the general qualities outlined in the rubric, instructors may want to keep the
following criteria in mind when designing essay prompts for each assignment.
Lens Essay
A successful lens analysis should accomplish the following:
- Present an argument that engages both the lens text and the focus text (the thing to which you apply the lens) in a meaningful way. The argument should not appear to be mostly about one text or the other with a few tossed-off references to the other. Rather, the argument should demonstrate what an understanding of one text can bring to a reading of another.
- Create an argument that not only applies the theoretical framework of a lens text to another text, but also uses the text being examined as a means of reflecting critically upon the theories of the lens itself. Whatever its insights, no theory can ever fully account for the totality of human existence; a responsible application of any theory must remain aware of that theory's shortcomings and oversights, and should use them as a means of critical reflection. Beyond simply looking for a counterargument, a lens analysis should use its texts to gesture toward some new ground that the lens cannot describe and that the text suggests in some way.
- Demonstrate a clear understanding of both texts through the careful analysis of well-chosen evidence. A successful lens analysis must not fall into the trap of merely summarizing either text, but must perform a close-reading of them both. This means doing more than simply putting Freud, Mulvey, or Foucault in one's own words, necessary as that might be in first attempts to understand them.
Research Essay
A successful researched argument should accomplish the following:
- Present an argument that is as much of an argument as the lens essay was. Students must resist the urge to compose encyclopedia articles or compilations of fascinating trivia. The sources uncovered must serve as tool of argumentation as directly as the textual evidence used in a close reading.
- Integrate the arguments of others into a clear and coherent original argument. Just as the successful lens analysis uses a theory to say something original about that theory, so too should the sources here serve an original claim and not simply agree in an uncritical way. It may not be possible to build a researched argument around the complication of some other theory, but any researched argument must clearly distinguish its own position from the others it employs.
- Develop in a manner that pushes forward an original thesis, justifying not only the choice of evidence but also the order in which it presents that evidence. A strongly motivated and evolving thesis is an absolute necessity when dealing with research, as arguments can disappear into context quite easily if not especially clear, motivated, and consistent.