IB English III Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay Topics, Due Dates, Rubrics and Calendar

These topics should be the basis of analytical essays of approximately 750 words. All essays must be
formatted in the MLA style. We will be learning the Jane Shaffer style of writing essays in response to
literature. Unless you received grades of 85 or above on your previous two essays, I expect you to follow
this format. Your essay should support a thesis that addresses your question with close analysis of
specific incidents in the text and of the language Hurston uses to narrate them. These prompts are
meant to be springboards to your ideas you need not answer all of the questions under any given
topic.
1. Analyze the role of storytelling in Their Eyes Were Watching God. How do the characters use
narration to create meaning? Why does Hurston tell the story from multiple points of view and
in multiple voices? In what way is Phoebes role as the listener important to Janies
understanding of her life? How does Hurstons use of direct, indirect and free indirect discourse
affect the readers understanding of character? What understanding of the world and of the
lives of her characters does Hurstons style of narration transmit?

2. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel about the power of voice. Analyze how Hurston uses
point of view and different registers of language (dialect and "standard English," for instance) to
represent different characters and different aspects of characters and to explore the theme of
self-expression and self-definition.

3. Read Richard Wrights review of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Write an essay that defends
the novel against his claim that it degrades the African American experience and intellect.
Consider the emotional nature of Hurstons characters and her choices to include folklore and
dialect.

4. From the first sentence of the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God emphasizes the relationship
between men and women in Hurston's fictional world. Discuss Janie's relationship with her
three husbands as a way to examine her character development over the course of the novel.
Discuss Their Eyes as a romance novel--a love story. Why do you think Hurston chooses to end
the novel with Janie alone rather than married? In what ways do the events and narration of the
novel bear out or contradict the dichotomy between men and womens experience of the world
that Hurston proposes in the beginning of the novel? How do romantic and sexual experiences
serve as catalysts for Janies self-discovery?

5. In what ways do Janies experiences represent a heroic or spiritual journey or a coming of age?
Analyze her growth as a character in light of the heros journey.

6. Despite the criticism of the novel by some of Hurstons male critics, Their Eyes has been
characterized by some as a protest novel. What is the novel protesting? How does it voice its
protest? How does it critique inequities in race, class, and gender?


[For the New Masses, (5 October 1937: 22-23) Richard Wright reviewed Their Eyes Were
Watching God along with another "negro novel." To him Hurston's book was a kind of minstrel
show.]
Between Laughter and Tears

It is difficult to evaluate Waters Turpin's These Low Grounds and Zora Neale Hurston's Their
Eyes Were Watching God. This is not because there is an esoteric meaning hidden or implied in
either of the two novels; but rather because neither of the two novels has a basic idea or theme
that lends itself to significant interpretation. Miss Hurston seems to have no desire whatever to
move in the direction of serious fiction. . . .
Their Eyes Were Watching God is the story of Zora Neale Hurston's Janie who, at sixteen,
married a grubbing farmer at the anxious instigation of her slave-born grandmother. The
romantic Janie, in the highly-charged language of Miss Hurston, longed to be a pear tree in
blossom and have a "dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-
calyxes arch to meet the love embrace." Restless, she fled from her farmer husband and
married Jody, an up-and-coming Negro business man who, in the end, proved to be no better
than her first husband. After twenty years of clerking for her self-made Jody, Janie found
herself a frustrated widow of forty with a small fortune on her hands. Tea Cake, "from in and
through Georgia," drifted along and, despite his youth, Janie took him. For more than two years
they lived happily; but Tea Cake was bitten by a mad dog and was infected with rabies. One
night in a canine rage Tea Cake tried to murder Janie, thereby forcing her to shoot the only man
she had ever loved.
Miss Hurston can write, but her prose is cloaked in that facile sensuality that has dogged
Negro expression since the days of Phillis Wheatley. Her dialogue manages to catch the
psychological movements of the Negro folk-mind in their pure simplicity, but that's as far as it
goes.
Miss Hurston voluntarily continues in her novel the tradition which was forcedupon the
Negro in the theatre, that is, the minstrel technique that makes the "white folks" laugh. Her
characters eat and laugh and cry and work and kill; they swing like a pendulum eternally in that
safe and narrow orbit in which America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears.
Turpin's faults as a writer are those of an honest man trying desperately to say something;
but Zora Neale Hurston lacks even that excuse. The sensory sweep of her novel carries no
theme, no message, no thought. In the main, her novel is not addressed to the Negro, but to a
white audience whose chauvinistic tastes she knows how to satisfy. She exploits that phase of
Negro life which is "quaint," the phase which evokes a piteous smile on the lips of the
"superior" race.



The Hero's Journey Outline
The Heros Journey is a pattern of narrative identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell that appears
in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual, and psychological development. It describes the typical adventure
of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the
group, tribe, or civilization.
Its stages are:
1. THE ORDINARY WORLD. The hero, uneasy, uncomfortable or unaware, is introduced
sympathetically so the audience can identify with the situation or dilemma. The hero is shown
against a background of environment, heredity, and personal history. Some kind of polarity in the
heros life is pulling in different directions and causing stress.
2. THE CALL TO ADVENTURE. Something shakes up the situation, either from external pressures
or from something rising up from deep within, so the hero must face the beginnings of change.
3. REFUSAL OF THE CALL. The hero feels the fear of the unknown and tries to turn away from the
adventure, however briefly. Alternately, another character may express the uncertainty and danger
ahead.
4. MEETING WITH THE MENTOR. The hero comes across a seasoned traveler of the worlds who
gives him or her training, equipment, or advice that will help on the journey. Or the hero reaches
within to a source of courage and wisdom.
5. CROSSING THE THRESHOLD. At the end of Act One, the hero commits to leaving the Ordinary
World and entering a new region or condition with unfamiliar rules and values.
6. TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES. The hero is tested and sorts out allegiances in the Special
World.
7. APPROACH. The hero and newfound allies prepare for the major challenge in the Special world.
8. THE ORDEAL. Near the middle of the story, the hero enters a central space in the Special World
and confronts death or faces his or her greatest fear. Out of the moment of death comes a new life.
9. THE REWARD. The hero takes possession of the treasure won by facing death. There may be
celebration, but there is also danger of losing the treasure again.
10. THE ROAD BACK. About three-fourths of the way through the story, the hero is driven to
complete the adventure, leaving the Special World to be sure the treasure is brought home. Often a
chase scene signals the urgency and danger of the mission.
11. THE RESURRECTION. At the climax, the hero is severely tested once more on the threshold of
home. He or she is purified by a last sacrifice, another moment of death and rebirth, but on a higher
and more complete level. By the heros action, the polarities that were in conflict at the beginning
are finally resolved.
12. RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR. The hero returns home or continues the journey, bearing some
element of the treasure that has the power to transform the world as the hero has been transformed.


















Calendar and Due Dates

Please note: I will be checking each portion of the essay on the date it is due and deducting points for late
work. It is imperative that you complete outlining and drafting in a timely manner if you wish to do well
this six weeks.

TH/F 10/16-17
Close reading passage on 84-87
Direct and indirect discourse
Discussion Chapters 8-13 in TEWWG
Analytical essay assigned

M/T 10/20-21
Passage Analysis: The Search for Our Mothers Gardens
Graded Discussion Chapters 14-17 TEWWG
Read On Being Black and Middle Class for 10/22-23

W/TH 10/22-23
Passage Analysis: On Being Black and Middle Class
Richard Wright criticism
Graded discussion Chapters 18-20

F/M 10/24-27
Passage Analysis: Student essay samples
Jane Shaeffer essay structure presentation
Thesis and outline due in class

T/W 10/28 29
Passage Analysis: Student essay body paragraphs
Body paragraphs
Quote integration
Introductions and conclusions
In-class writing
Conferences

TH/F 10/30-31
Passage Analysis: Student Essays
Draft Due
Peer Edit
Editing
Conferences

M/T 11/2-3
Essay due
Assign IA

Paper 1: Literary Commentary Rubric (HL)
0 1 2 3 4 5
Criterion A:
Understanding and
interpretation
How well does the
students
interpretation reveal
understanding of the
thought and feeling
of the text?
How well are the
ideas supported by
references to the
text?

The work
does not
reach a
standard
described
by the
descriptors.
There is a basic
understanding of
the passage but
virtually no
attempt at
interpretation
and few
references to
the passage.
There is some
understanding of
the passage, with a
superficial attempt
at interpretation
and some
appropriate
references to the
passage.
There is
adequate
understanding of
the passage,
demonstrated by
an interpretation
that is supported
by appropriate
references to the
passage.
There is a very
good
understanding of
the passage,
demonstrated by
sustained
interpretation
supported by
well-chosen
references to the
passage.
There is excellent
understanding of
the passage,
demonstrated by
persuasive
interpretation
supported by
effective
references to the
passage.
Criterion B:
Appreciation of the
writers choices
To what extent does
the analysis show
appreciation of how
the writers choices
of language,
structure, technique
and style shape
meaning?


The work
does not
reach a
standard
described
by the
descriptors.
There are few
references to,
and no analysis
or appreciation
of, the ways in
which language,
structure,
technique and
style shape
meaning.
There is some
mention, but little
analysis or
appreciation, of the
ways in which
language,
structure,
technique and style
shape meaning.
There is
adequate
analysis and
appreciation of
the ways in which
language,
structure,
technique and
style shape
meaning.
There is very
good analysis
and appreciation
of the ways in
which language,
structure,
technique and
style shape
meaning.
There is excellent
analysis and
appreciation of
the ways in which
language,
structure,
technique and
style shape
meaning.
Criterion C:
Organization and
development
How well organized,
coherent and
developed is the
presentation of
ideas?
The work
does not
reach a
standard
described
by the
descriptors.
Ideas have little
organization;
there may be a
superficial
structure, but
coherence and
development are
lacking.
Ideas have some
organization, with a
recognizable
structure;
coherence and
development are
often lacking.
Ideas are
adequately
organized, with a
suitable structure;
some attention is
paid to coherence
and development.
Ideas are
effectively
organized, with
very good
structure,
coherence and
development.
Ideas are
persuasively
organized, with
excellent
structure,
coherence and
development.
Criterion D:
Language
How clear, varied
and accurate is the
language? How
appropriate is the
choice of register,
style and
terminology?
(Register refers, in
this context, to the
students use of
elements such as
vocabulary, tone,
sentence structure
and terminology
appropriate to the
commentary.)
The work
does not
reach a
standard
described
by the
descriptors.
Language is
rarely clear and
appropriate;
there are many
errors in
grammar,
vocabulary and
sentence
construction,
and little sense
of register and
style.
Language is
sometimes clear
and carefully
chosen; grammar,
vocabulary and
sentence
construction are
fairly accurate,
although errors
and
inconsistencies are
apparent; the
register and style
are to some extent
appropriate to the
commentary.
Language is clear
and carefully
chosen, with an
adequate degree
of accuracy in
grammar,
vocabulary and
sentence
construction
despite some
lapses; register
and style are
mostly
appropriate to the
commentary.
Language is
clear and
carefully chosen,
with a good
degree of
accuracy in
grammar,
vocabulary and
sentence
construction;
register and style
are consistently
appropriate to
the commentary.
Language is very
clear, effective,
carefully chosen
and precise, with
a high degree of
accuracy in
grammar,
vocabulary and
sentence
construction;
register and style
are effective and
appropriate to the
commentary.