ENGL 127 Fall 2000

Plan for paper #3

1. Use group sessions with consultants to develop draft ideas early on.

2. Use individual appts with consultants for going over written drafts.

3. Before the next paper, students will each make a brief list of the approaches they have used for their two previous papers. Here are some possible approaches they may have used:

• Character focus (e.g. focus on women characters in Richard III; two brothers in True West; Anthony in House of Yes)
• Thematic focus (e.g., metatheatre; dysfunctional family in The House of Yes; American cultural identity in The African Company PresentsÉ)
• Sructural or dramaturgical devices as a focus (e.g., foreshadowing and predictions in Richard III; scenes with all women in Richard III; soliloquies in Macbeth; parallel scenes in True West; wooing scenes in Richard III, True West; The African Company Presents...; chiasmus in True West; interchangeable positions for characters and stage positions in The House of Yes and True West)
• Language focus (e.g. a metaphoric system such as images and metaphors of mirrors in True West; image clusters such as blood, babes, and clothing in Macbeth; plant imagery in Macbeth; ice, alchohol, and huuricanes in The House of Yes; games in The House of Yes; recurrent concept-words such as fear in Macbeth or language in The African Company Presents...)
• Performance-based interpretation (e.g., discussing critical performance choices that determine meanings and/or effects such as some staging choices in True West, Macbeth, or The House of Yes; comparing movies and scripts with Richard III or The House of Yes)
• Historical or social context (e.g., position of women in a period and how this figures in a work such as Richard III; the witch craze in England in the early 17th century and its relationhip to Macbeth; the literary scene Paris in the 1930's and how this relates to Nigro's methods and themes)
• Genre approach (e.g., how a play works as memory play, a comedy, a serious drama, a tragedy.)
• Problem approach -- interpretative puzzles or ambiguities (e.g. did Mr. Pascal leave or was he killed? Why does Lady Anne agree to marry Richard of Gloucester? Is the ending of The African Company Presents Richard III a triumph for a new American-centered theatre, or is it a triumph for an Afro-centric theatre -- that is Black-separatist, or a model for all Americans?)
• Comparison approach ( e.g., comparing two or more plays using a focus like one of the above). Somebody might have compared sibling rivalries in two plays; absent fathers in two plays, or noted similar themes such as alcoholism, female insanity, confused identity boundaries. or the like.

3. The assignment for the third paper will be for each student to use a novel approach they have not used before. We will brainstorm paper topics in class and try to come up with at least one topic for each type of approach.

4. Students will be asked to add a brief discussion, as an epilogue, at the end of their papers noting what new methods or ideas they gained as a result of taking a novel approach.