Note that each prompt asks you to write about Water by the Spoonful. Failure to write about this play is failure of the assignment. In other words, remember that the play must be the primary subject of your writing and that it is appropriate to draw on scholarly resources as you make and support your argument. Treating the scholarly resources as if they were the main focus of project will not lead to a score of Complete.
Examine Water by the Spoonful and form an interpretive argument that responds to the prompt you choose. Your essay needs to make and support an interesting, valid, insightful, valuable claim (a thesis statement) that provokes critical thinking and persuades me to see things your way.
Support your interpretive argument with supporting claims (for example, in the form of topic sentences) and by explaining how specific evidence from the play itself suggests or demonstrates specific supporting claims. Build your case; don’t assume that your reader already understands why you think what you think. As was stated in the Poetry Unit Project’s assignment page, this requirement is not intended to limit your argumentation strategy to those associated with the conventions of White racial habitus. Instead, this requirement is intended to make clear that your essay must make an interpretive argument and support it by showing readers, in some reasonable way, how evidence in the play and additional resources support your interpretation.
The content of this course and its assigned materials should be evident in the paper submitted. Use literary terminology, and demonstrate your awareness of basic conventions of critical discourse.
Researching beyond the play itself is required for this project. Be sure to choose the best (most relevant and most appropriate) sources available. Regardless of where you find the resources you use, be sure to evaluate and document them carefully. This requirement does not stipulate a specific quantity of resources because most such stipulations are specious; instead, the idea here is to think about the kinds of resources that should be beneficial to a project of the size and scope you develop, and to find the best available resources to be of use to you as you complete it.
Follow MLA style when formatting and documenting your work.
Planning to Produce a Scene
Write an original, interpretive essay that argues how a scene crucial to the play should be produced (designed, directed, staged, acted). Be specific.
Consider these kinds of questions as you develop pre-writing for your project essay (do not present a series of answers to these questions as if they automatically constituted a coherent essay):
How does this scene fit into the play’s plot? That is, what does it do to complicate or resolve the play’s major conflict(s)? How and where does this scene fit into a structural analysis, or a graphical analysis of the play’s plot? What’s at stake in this scene, practically and conceptually? What is the thematic significance of this scene — how does this scene contribute to the play’s overall messages about its subjects? How does this scene relate to other scenes — scenes nearby, and scenes earlier and/or later in the play?
What does this scene reveal about its characters? What motivates these characters, individually? Are anyone’s goals realized or thwarted in this scene?
For that matter, what motivates the audience? That is, what question do we want answered in this scene? What do we hope or expect to happen, and does the scene deliver? Why? How?
Who would you cast in these roles? Why?
What sort of performance space is ideal for this scene—what sort of theater, and what sort of stage? How should these characters act and behave in that space? Where would you position characters in relation to each other, and what stage business would you expect your actors to use at which moments? How should key lines, whichever ones they are, be delivered? With what tone or pace? Where in the scene is action or reaction crucial? What actions or objects here are symbolic and have to be understood by the audience as such if the scene is to be successful? Explain your ideas.
If lighting, props, or special effects are integral to the scene’s effect, then describe them as you imagine them. For example, if you think part of the scene calls for a specific kind of lighting, describe that light in terms of source, direction, intensity, focus, color, and anything else that helps readers visualize what you have in mind.
How might other elements of performance or drama impact this scene in crucial ways?
Remember: your task here is to write an essay, not merely to answer the questions listed above. Some of the questions above will be more interesting for scene 5, for example, than for scene 12. Let your scene and its peculiarities help you determine which aspects of the scene require the most attention and the greatest care in discussion.
Remember: this project requires research. You might research how real production teams have cast the play or staged the scene. You might learn more about how critics and academics have responded to the play in general and to the specific scene you have chosen. You might learn more about specific aspects of production or performance to help clarify parts of your argument. Be resourceful. Note that, in addition to published reviews and scholarly writing in subscriiption databases, resources prepared by production teams and used for marking and outreach purposes may be relevant and useful.
Remember, too, that your essay is probably not going to be able to account for every single detail. Focus on the details that matter most. For example, while blocking of a particular part of the scene might be particularly important because it communicates well some aspect of characters’ relationships or a change in characterization, you need not provide a complete descriiption of all aspects of blocking for the entire scene. Part of writing well involves deciding what to emphasize, what to minimize, and what to leave out.
