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essay about the hobbit due on friday december 22 @ 11:59 prompt options and more details are below. essay must have cited sources and text evidence
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This syllabus may be amended as the course proceeds. Students will be notified of all changes.
Writing Assignment for HUM 380-J01
Papers should be at least 5-6 pages in length, but will likely be longer, based on the option you choose.
Option 1: Examine Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit in his three-film epic: The
Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and The Hobbit: The Battle
of Five Armies. You will need to rent these (or if you’re really a fan, purchase them); they should all
be available on streaming to rent on Amazon. Consider the following questions as you compare the
book with the movie adaptations:
– How do the movies differ from the book in terms of character, plot, and theme?
– All adaptations from book to film require some adjustment. What adjustments does Peter Jackson
make? Are they warranted, in your opinion? In other words, do they work well and do they facilitate
the telling of the story on film, as opposed to hindering the telling of the story.
– Regardless of the differences, is your assessment that Jackson’s films are good adaptations or not,
and why?
– No matter what you decide – good adaptation/bad adaptation – consider why someone might take the
opposing viewpoint and spend a little time (a paragraph or two) discussing it.
– You will need to draw examples from the movies and the book to support your assertions. You will
also need no other source material than the book and the films for this assignment, although you are
welcome to draw on material covered in the lectures as well.
Option 1A: Same thing, but instead of analyzing Jackson’s adaptation, examine the 1977 Rankin & Bass film
adaptation of The Hobbit with the same questions in mind. You will only need the 1977 film and the
book, and lectures if you so choose, as sources for this assignment.
Option 1B: Only recommended if you are a turbo-Tolkien geek like me and know all the adaptations well
already! Compare the 1977 animated Rankin & Bass film with Jackson’s film in terms of their being
good adaptations or not. In other words, which one, in your opinion, supported by examples drawn
from the films and the book, is the better adaptation. Or are they both good, but for different reasons.
Or both bad, but for different reasons. For this assignment, you will need all the film adaptations and
The Hobbit as source material. As always, you are welcome to draw on the lectures as a source,
although this is not required.
Option 2: Using Tolkien’s rubric for what fairy stories are and how they work, as outlined in his essay “On
Fairy Stories,” examine The Hobbit and Farmer Giles of Ham. The first part of the paper should lay
out Tolkien’s parameters for such tales in “On Fairy Stories.” Once you have explained these ideas,
discuss how both of the other stories succeed (or don’t) based on Tolkien’s own requirements.
Finally, discuss whether or not you feel that Tolkien has the right of it in terms of what fairy
stories/tales do and why they are valuable to us as humans. For this you will need the essay “On Fairy
Stories,” Farmer Giles of Ham, and The Hobbit. Material covered in the lectures is, as always,
allowed as a source.
Option 3: Choose one of the following larger themes in The Hobbit and discuss the role it plays in the story
and how it plays out through the novel. Be thorough in your assessment. Choose your theme and
trace it through the whole book from beginning to end. For this essay, you will only need The Hobbit,
but outside source material is allowed if you so desire.
– The importance of the natural world and a simple life (perhaps v. artifice/technology/industry).
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Greed (not just desire for material wealth but lack of a generous spirit) (perhaps v. the virtue of
generosity).
The importance of friendship, including a discussion of what real friendship looks like in the story.
The horrors of war and how the battlefield is never really left behind when soldiers come home.
Something else that I have not considered.
Option 4: Got something else in mind? A different paper topic? Or maybe you’re envisioning a more creative
project where you craft something (although you won’t have access to labs or the Idea Shop at IIT
and you are very short on time – only 2 weeks!). Or perhaps you have been working on your own
“radio drama” style adaptation of The Hobbit. Or you’d like to design an eco-friendly house based on
Bag-End. Set up an online appointment and we can talk about the possibility. One thing to be aware
of: you will have to do some research for your project. In our talks, we will need to agree on at least
two acceptable sources outside of the materials listed above that are used for this class.
Paper Writing Guidelines
– All direct quotations and paraphrases should be cited.
– When should you cite a source, especially a source that’s not just one of the few works we are
reading for this course? The answer is: every time you draw information from it. The only exception
is if the information is considered common knowledge – basic information like birth and death dates,
years of a war or very well-known event, etc., and information that is found in three or more sources.
– Actually, there is another exception: When giving plot summary information, unless you are using a
direct quotation, you don’t need to cite the source either (obviously if you are summarizing some plot
points from The Hobbit in a paper about The Hobbit, it’s pretty clear what your source is). However,
anytime the information is controversial or interpretative and from some place other than your own
mind, however, you should cite the source.
– If a direct quotation is being used, then it must be set in quotation marks, and you must cite
immediately. If you are paraphrasing a source (putting it into your own words), the citation should
come at the end of your paraphrase, unless, again, you are merely summarizing plot.
– Block quotes are direct quotations that take up more than six lines of text in your paper. The proper
formatting for a block quote is to indent both margins 5 spaces and put the line spacing at single
space for the text of the quote. However, these should be avoided if your paper is only five to six
pages. Over six pages, I will allow block quoters, but there should be no more than 2 of them in the
paper total; too often block quotes are used to fill up space. Learn the art of distilling information and
paraphrasing.
– There must be a bibliography (list of sources used) at the end of the paper. Please note: Having a
bibliography at the end of the paper does not absolve you from citing your sources in the text of
your paper. You must do both.
– When writing your paper, it is useful to work from a written outline. You will, of course, change
parts of the paper around or even drop items from the original outline entirely, but it is helpful to
have an idea of what you are writing about before you actually start writing.
– Papers must have an introduction and a conclusion (each no more than a paragraph) framing the body
of the work. Hint: Write the introduction to your paper after you have written everything else. It will
ensure that your introduction accurately reflects what you have talked about in your paper, and will
avoid the instructor wondering why you said in the intro. you were going to talk about one thing,
when in fact you talked about another thing entirely. Such a realization on the part of your instructor
invariably leads to a precipitous drop in the paper grade.
– All paragraphs must be indented three to five spaces.
– The word novel should only be used to refer to a work of fiction. Do not refer to a piece of academic
writing or non-fiction as ‘a novel’. The Hobbit is a novel; technically, Farmer Giles of Ham is a
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novella, but I’ll allow the word novel to refer to it. “On Fairy Stories” is not a novel as it is nonfiction and an essay.
Beware of shifting verb tenses (especially in the same sentence!). As a general rule, it is easiest to
stay in past tense when you are writing. The exception is when you are directly referencing an
author’s work (even when they are dead). Example: “In his work The Interpretation of Dreams,
Freud says…. These ideas were very important to the fledgling field of psychology.”
Please keep in mind the following pitfalls: know the difference between:
to (preposition), too (also), two (the number)
throne (something you sit on), thrown (past tense of ‘to throw’)
lead (a metal), led (past tense of ‘to lead’)
their (possessive), there (adverb), they’re (contraction of they are)
its (possessive), it’s (contraction of it is)
among not amongst, while not whilst
who (subject) and whom (object).
Be consistent with your capitalization. If you are talking about ‘goblins’ and ‘hobbits’ in the
introduction, be sure you continue talking about ‘goblins’ and ‘hobbits’ in the body of your paper and
not ‘Goblins’ and ‘Hobbits’.
Papers must be at least 5-6 pages long (there is no upper end on the page limit, although if you are
going over 20 pages you probably need to scale back a bit).
Papers should be typewritten, and double-spaced with standard margins. Make sure that there are not
two double-spacings between paragraphs. This is unnecessary and only wastes space.
Pages should be numbered.
Papers may or may not have a cover sheet at the student’s discretion; as long as the student’s name is
on the paper I am happy.
Spelling and grammar are important. I expect papers to be written using correct English.
Proofread! Spellcheck is not enough. Read your papers out loud after you have written them. It is an
excellent way to make sure that your writing is clear and makes sense. If you read it out loud and a
sentence sounds strange to your ear, there is most likely something wrong with it. Figure out what
needs fixing and fix it. When in doubt, have a fellow student or friend read it out loud to you.
Grading Scale
There are 1000 points possible for the course. If an assignment, say the second exam, is worth 20% of the
course grade, then it is worth 200 points. Total up your points at the end of the semester and divide by 10 to
determine your grade. Let’s say you end up with 895 points. This would, rounded up, translate into a 90, an
A-, which in IIT terms is considered an A (Go you!). Please note: Not doing one of the exams (worth 20%
of the grade or 200 points) means that the highest grade you can receive for the class is 80% (800 points) or a
B-, presuming you get 100% on all the other assignments! Most likely that won’t be the case, and you will
end up falling into the C or D range. Remember too that if the writing assignment is not turned in that is an
automatic failing grade for the class.
I am always happy to discuss your grade with you and clarify my reasoning for it. That being said, I am not
going to play the game of: “Let’s haggle with the professor to get more points” – a game which usually
occurs at the end of the semester or session. If you are concerned about the effect of the course grade on your
GPA, you need to be concerned for the entire J-Term, not just at the very end of the class when you realize
you miscalculated and are not getting the grade you were hoping for. The key to a successful grade in all of
my courses is to attend class and follow the syllabus and my instructions exactly. If you need this class to
graduate, then you need to fulfill all the requirements. Passing grades (a D or above to fulfill your
Humanities requirement) are earned, not automatically given to any person for any reason.
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