<CAUTION: These handouts must be used in conjunction with class discussion and other course materials. They are not intended to be stand-alone explanations.>

A. TRANSITION

Now I would like to give you a general outline of the models we'll be discussing in this section that are designed to help you generate the content for your papers.

1. Since English 20 is not supposed to be a research course, you will all share the same set of givens to develop your arguments.

a) Novels <including required films>

 

b) Lectures and handouts.

 

2. All of your arguments must be consistent with the facts of the texts and the materials in the lectures and handouts <most of the required lecture material is repeated in the handouts>.

3. What this means is that you cannot say something in your arguments that is inconsistent with (a) and (b) without defending your position. <I always allow for alternative views, but they must be proven or defended.>

4. In principle, each of you should be able to understand and evaluate any paper written for the course that follows course guidelines.

5. What I am going to do here is expand upon the common set of concepts and processing models I want you all to use in developing answers to the paper topics.

B. THE CRAG MODEL

We all come from different social and cultural backgrounds. So, in order to make talking about social issues easier, both as regards to real life and the worlds described by novels and films, we will assume that our individual and collective experiences, however different they may be, can still be analyzed in terms of four basic variables <CRAG>:

1) Class

2) Race

3) Age

4) Gender.

1. Even though these categories are very general, I am sure that you will find them rather useful tools when writing your papers.

2. In this course, we are going to assume that the most important variable is class. Since class is such a complex and often controversial subject, I will ask you all to read an essay on class by sociologist, Herbert Gans. The Gans analysis will be the class model we'll be using in the course. <Please read the essay carefully, but remember that it is only one interpretation out of many.>

3. In Gans' interpretation of American class structures, there are four classes:

a) upper middle class professsional

b) middle

c) working

d) lower.

4. I also want to add a fifth class distinction &endash; what I will call, for want of a better term, upper middle class "business."

e) upper middle class business.

 

The line between the two upper middle class groups is fuzzy and there is a lot of cross-over. However, many of our most important social conflicts can be analyzed as a struggle between these two value systems.

5. Given Gans, we can say that the values of the upper middle class professional model dominate American public education and government. So according to his theory, the values we are teaching you here at CSUS have a clear class origin.

6. In fact, all university papers, including those written for English 20, are directed to an upper middle class professional audience. This audience is typified by two important features:

a) A belief in the importance of critical thinking and logic in the presentation of arguments.

 

b) The attempt to be objective and unbiased when presenting arguments, particularly in respect to the four CRAG categories. Hence, there is a conscious effort on the part of all "educated" individuals to develop social guidelines and solutions to societal problems that are neutral or unbiased in respect to class, race, age and gender variables.

7. For the purposes of understanding literature and film, the most important classes are: a) upper middle class professsional, b) middle class, and c) upper middle class business. The reason for this is that each represents a major target audience for mainstream publications and other forms of media. On the other hand, to understand many of the problems and issues of our society, we must add a fourth category: d) working class.

C. THE AMERICAN DREAM

Next I want to present another non-literary model for understanding the social relations depicted in your reading assignments. This analysis is usually referred to as the American Dream. It tries to offer a set of explanations for a central force underlying the American experience that we can reconceptualize in terms of our four CRAG categories.

1. It is possible to interpret all the novels and films we'll be discussing, including Sense and Sensibility, in terms of the American dream model. Of course, this set of concepts was developed by social historians and others, so it is not unique to literature even though most American writers can be seen to deal with one of more aspects of the American Dream concept.

E. THE NOVEL AS ESSAY

Now we need to deal with a model that will help us to bridge the gap between the world of a fictional novel or narrative film and the real world, the world you and I live in. For this, we will use the concept of the argumentative essay.

1. In real life, the argumentative essay, in all of its many forms <reports, briefs, articles, etc.>, is a format for persuading your reader that you believe that something is true of the real world and that you want them to share in this belief.

2. The form of the argumentative essay is designed to enable you to use facts, opinions and experiences along with the rules of logic to prove that an idea or thesis is true. <This is what you learned in English 1A.>

3. In English 20, we will be using this concept of the essay in a number of different ways. One of our most important uses will be to model the theme or message of a novel or film on the thesis statement of an argumentative paper.

4. Even though we know that novels and films are not true and the events in them did not really happen, it is still useful to model novels and films on the argumentative essay.

5. You might recall that in our first content paper we broke the essay down into a series of component parts. We said an effective essay has to be organized around a central thesis statement that is the message the writer wants a specific audience to believe or accept.

6. We also said that everything in the essay from the organization, background paragraphs and the examples used word choice and style should be explained by the thesis statement. By the same token, everything in the essay should support the thesis statement.

7. I would like to suggest that there are a number of similarities between reading an expository essay and reading a novel. Just as the most important thing we need to do when understanding an essay is determining the thesis statement, our most important task in reading a novel is to understand the theme of the novel <given a speficic audience>.

8. Just as in the case of the argumentative essay, the theme statement of a novel is the idea or concept that helps us to make sense of all the elements of the novel. It does not have to be profound or complex, but it should provide some kind of reason for everything that happens in the novel.

9. Of course, the structure of a novel is very different from that of an essay, but there are basic features most novels and films have in common. And these features have parallels with the essay form. Let me list them here.

a) All novels are addressed to a specific audience <which we can define in terms of our CRAG model>.

 

b) Most novels have characters and plots. Plots are "stories" about the primary characters that have a beginning, a middle and an end. Most novels are centered around one or two plots.

 

c) Most novels present ideas and events that are to be taken as "proof" or "evidence" for the theme of the novel. A good novel, like a good essay, provides the reader with convincing examples.

 

d) Most novels must be logically consistent in the presentation of themes and evidence or the audience will reject or dismiss the theme.

F. UPSHOTS

So for the purposes of your papers, we are going to assume that a novel or a narrative film is like a series of arguments <made to a specific audience> used to support a specific theme. Hence, it becomes important for you to identify the audience of the novel and the theme. All of your interpretations will center around these two aspects.

1. As I have said, even though we don't apply the same standards of truth to a fictional work as a non-fiction essay, novels and films can be rejected by their audiences as being unbelievable or inconsistent because the characters, plots and events in the novel just aren't able to support the theme.

2. And just as in the case of the essay, consistency is the key to creating a believable novel or film.

3. To illustrate all of these points, I am going to have you read and analyze an essay on the new Disney version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical, "Cinderella," written by Rick Kusman, television critic for the Sacramento Bee.

4. The Kushman essay will be analyzed in depth in another handout. However, let me say here that he not only uses the same critical thinking tools I want you to use in your essays, but he also represents the values of the upper middle class professional audience you will be writing to.