Project 3 Audience: For Project 3, you are writing for an intelligent person who may have read The Handmaid’s Tale, but who may not understand the role, relevance, or meaning of your particular subject matter. That being said, you will need to provide appropriate context for the book. Background and Purpose: As a dystopian novel (or in Margaret Atwood’s words, a work of “speculative fiction”), The Handmaid’s Tale imagines a nightmarish future in which a totalitarian theocratic government subjugates and enslaves women for the purpose of sexual reproduction. Since its publication in 1985, the book has been critically acclaimed (winning the Arthur C. Clarke Award, nominated for a Booker Prize and a Nebula Award) and often banned (it was one of the most frequently banned books of the 1990s and 2000s). In 2017, The Handmaid′s Tale was made into a wildly popular Hulu series and sales of the book increased by 200 percent. The novel confronts many complex themes still relevant to our culture today, including the relationship of POWER to sex, gender, language, religion, love, oppression, surveillance, policing, and subjugation and control, just to name a few. Margaret Atwood has often remarked that “everything that happened in The Handmaid’s Tale has happened in real life.” For Project 3, your purpose is to flex your critical-thinking skills and develop a ″lens″* essay to help your audience to understand the complexity and current relevance of your subject matter. You will do this through your own analysis of The Handmaid’s Tale and the integration of nuanced and diverse outside sources. *In this case, a “lens” project asks you to apply your understanding of a text, or concept to another text, or concept. The Project 3 Essay will assess the following English 124 Student Learning Outcomes: locate, evaluate, and synthesize information from sources representing diverse perspectives in order to construct arguments. Task For the Project 3 Essay, develop a literary argument on The Handmaid′s Tale and then use this argument as a ″lens″ to evaluate our current culture/society. To support your literary argument and societal evaluation, you will need to synthesize and work critically with The Handmaid′s Tale and at least three (3) credible sources that offer clarity or insight into your major claim/thesis. These sources should support, deepen, or even complicate your argument. You may also use visuals in this essay as evidence; however, they will not count as your outside sources. Steps to Develop the Project 3 Essay 1). Choose a central theme/idea from The Handmaid′s Tale that interests you. This can be one of the themes that we are discussing in class (The Role of Language, Feminism and Gender, Surveillance and Panopticism, Resistance and Rebellion) or this can be another theme that interests you. Several more themes are listed on the Reading Log info page. 2). Trace this theme throughout The Handmaid′s Tale. Moving forward, use your Reading Log for this. Take note of Chapters and textual evidence that relate to your theme. 3). Develop a major claim on how this theme functions in The Handmaid′s Tale. 4). Develop a ″question of inquiry″ to speculate how this theme functions in our society today. Here are some examples of Steps 3 and 4: Example 1: Major Claim: The Handmaid’s Tale demonstrates, through the theocratic government in Gilead, that religion and its associated language is a powerful tool in shaping people’s actions as well as public opinion. Question of Inquiry: In our current American society, to what extent does Christianity and its associated language play in shaping people′s actions as well as public opinion? Example 2: Major Claim: The Handmaid’s Tale emphasizes how women are mistreated and deprived of their rights; however, rather than being helplessly submissive, women throughout the novel show subtle means of resistance — their survival depends on it. Questions of Inquiry: To what extent in our current American society are women oppressed and/or deprived of their rights? What recent forms of resistance or social movements have been most effective in promoting women′s equality? Or, how can this discussion of women′s rights also be applied to our current transgender population? 5). Using our Grossmont College Library and intelligent web research, gather some credible sources that support, deepen, or even your literary argument and societal evaluation. 6). Organize and synthesize, or establish relationships, between your four (4) sources (The Handmaid′s Tale + 3 outside sources). 7). Draft your essay. Grading Criteria: 1). Does the writer present a clear, coherent, and intelligent argument about a specific thematic aspect of The Handmaid’s Tale? Does the writer then clearly evaluate the degree to which this aspect functions in our current society? Is the topic clearly focused, defined, and developed through the course of the project? 2). Does the writer properly introduce the topic and offer the necessary context for the audience to enter the conversation? 3). Do the body paragraphs employ clear topic sentences, textual examples, and work to explain and interpret the relevance of the chosen subject? 4). Do the body paragraphs introduce, contextualize, and integrate credible sources (The Handmaid′s Tale + 3 outside sources) into the conversation? Does the writer work to make connections between the sources and his/her own ideas? Does the writer use MLA documentation to responsibly cite sources? 5). Does the writer effectively use rhetorical strategies to develop ethos, pathos, and logos in the project? 6). Does the writer logically organize the project and guide the audience through their ideas? 7). Is the project mostly free of mechanical and grammatical errors that might interfere with an audience’s understanding?
