Category: Literature

The present perfect continuous (also known as the present perfect progressive) is a verb tense used to talk about something that started in the past and is continuing at the present time.
I have been reading War and Peace for a month now.
In this sentence, using the present perfect continuous conveys that reading War and Peace
is an activity that began sometime in the past and is not yet finished
in the present (which is understandable, given the length of Leo
Tolstoy’s weighty tome).
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How to form the present perfect continuous
The formula for the present perfect continuous tense is has/have been + [present participle (root form of verb + -ing)].
Recently and lately are words that we often find with verbs in the present perfect continuous tense.
Mia has been competing in flute competitions recently (and she will continue to do so).
I haven’t been feeling well lately. Recently, I’ve been misplacing my wallet and keys.
Not all verbs are compatible with continuous action. Verbs that describe states and conditions, such as to be and to own,
for example, do not make sense in the present perfect continuous tense.
When you want to show that what is being described by one of these
verbs continues up to the present, you use the regular present perfect tense.

What’s love got to do with it? An evolutionary analysis of “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.”
Write 2-3 double-spaced pages summarizing the article (What’s love got to do with it? An evolutionary analysis of “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.”) and discuss if you agree/disagree with the main claim of the article and why. Be sure to quote the actual story itself AND the article to illustrate why you agree or disagree with the view of the literary critic.
Be sure to include the bibliographical information of the article in MLA format on a Works Cited page at the end of the paper. The article will be linked as a Word file, and the actual story itself is provided in the following link from HCC Learning Web:
https://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/selena.anderson/engl2328/readings/the-short-happy-life-of-francis-maccomber-by-ernest-hemingway/view

In Good College Writing, read and respond to the discussion questions for “Superhero Comic books” and “Fake News and False Memories.” Please pay attention to proofreading and formatting consistency. Upload your typed responses through MindTap.
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Discipline: Superhero Comicbooks

Answer one of the following essay prompts in a two-page response.To cite quotes please use in-text citations: (Author’s last name, page #) e.g. (Morgensen, 20). You will need to incorporate and explain 2 direct quotes from the Morgensen “Conversations on Berdache” reading.
1. How can intersectionality and anti-colonialism be better incorporated within the queer/LGBTQ+ community and its political demands? 2. Where does the term Two-Spirit come from? Why did Native queer people come up with this term? Do you think it fits into the LGBTQ+ acronym? Why or why not?
3. How have Native conceptualizations of gender and sexuality challenged Western queer and feminist theories that often rely on binary gender assumptions? 4. Connect Mogensen’s “Conversations on Berdache” reading to one of the other texts we have read this semester. Why do you think these two texts should be thought about together?

Write an original essay of about 600 words (within 4,000 characters) responding to one of the
following questions. Please indicate, by writing the question number, which one you are
answering. Use new paragraphs where appropriate to clearly present your thinking; ample space
is provided.
Your essay should give us some insight into you and your thought processes—and therefore
whether you are a good fit for NUS College. Thus, your essay should be your own work. Note that
the National University of Singapore expects academic integrity of all its students (including
prospective students); you can find guidelines on what constitutes plagiarism (including the use
of generative Artificial Intelligence) here. Not only does using AI constitute plagiarism, but doing
so results in essays that we consider generic and uncommitted, and unable to give us insights
into you and your thinking processes. We know this from our rigorous testing of these questions.
In the next section, you will have to affirm that your responses are your own, or declare the help
you have received.
Not only should your essay be original, but we urge you not to reuse essays you have written for
other occasions and purposes.
All the questions typically ask you to:
demonstrate how you think, about a specific subject or example;
and therefore, more generally, how you think thinking works.
You will have to provide the example, which can come from anywhere (pop culture, everyday life,
the academic realm) and from any discipline (whether the humanities, social sciences, sciences,
etc). If you do choose a technical subject, you should write about it using more generalist
language. On the whole, you should assume an intelligent but non-specialist audience. Because
we also want to know about you and your interests, you should use a personal and individualized
example. Therefore, your essay may first need to explain or narrate your personal relationship to
your example.
Following your explanation of how you came by your example, we would then like you to be, in
roughly equal measures, analytical and reflective.
Being analytical may require you to consider various facets of an issue, but it usually
means that, overall, you take a firm stance, and have a clear, reasoned, committed, and
distinct view and argument.
Being reflective means that you are able to carefully draw some larger conclusions that go
beyond the personal, or that you consider the status of your own analysis.

Requirements: 5-7 pages. Double-spaced. At least one secondary critical source is required. Citations should be in MLA style (page numbers in parentheses after quotes, works cited page at the end of the document).
Topics: Write an original argument about any of the texts that we have read for class up to this point. You can choose your own topic, drawing from prior weekly work or class discussion. If you would prefer to work from a prompt, you can let the prompts below help you. Argument: A good paper will have a thesis statement, textual evidence and explication, and a developing argument that employs transition/topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph. Your claim should lead to a unique understanding of some aspect of the text. You may also choose to engage with secondary sources if appropriate, possibly emending or correcting a reading by another critic.
Secondary Sources: Use the MLA Bibliography or JSTOR (both located in the “Research Databases” on the Library Website) to research your subject. Ideally, you will use one or two articles to position your own argument, using their theses to frame the context for your own. Put your paper “in conversation” with another piece–you don’t have to agree with them or even be writing about exactly the same thing.
1. Write about the theme and depiction of one broad theme (choose one: nature, sexuality, gender, race, labor, religion, perception, art) in any of the works that we have studied so far in class. Focusing on one or two scenes, make an argument for how the work depicts this theme, and what that depiction represents/does for the work’s wider significance or meaning.
2. Choose a passage from one of the texts and explain how that passage is integrally important to understanding the work’s wider meaning. Begin with a claim about how the text can usually be read (you can even use the Internet analysis for this), and then make an argument about how the passage in question changes or qualifies that traditional reading.
3. How do we read Scarlet Letter today along questions of gender and feminism? In Nina Baym’s seminal essay—“Revisiting Hawthorne’s Feminism” (Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 30 (Spring & Fall 2004), 32-55)—Baym argues that Hawthorne is a feminist writer against what she sees as the predominant reading of him as anti-feminist. According to her, these perspectives see Hawthorne’s use of the feminine as “always in the service of masculinity issues, that he viewed assertive or aggressive or rebellious women as threats to masculinity; that his inevitable punishing or containing of truant women demonstrated deep hostility to them and a profoundly conservative view of their proper place.” Consider Baym’s essay, and, choosing some aspect of The Scarlet Letter (a passage, a character, etc.), weigh in on Hawthorne’s depiction of the feminine and whether it should be considered feminist or not or something different.
4. Should we read Poe’s “Ligeia” as supernatural or not? Consider the debate that raged between Roy Basler (“The Interpretation of Ligeia” 1944) and James Schroeter (“A Misreading of Poe’s ‘Ligeia'” PMLA 1961), as well as their snarky replies to one another (“Poe’s ‘Ligeia'” PMLA 1962). 60 years later, make a claim about how we should interpret “Ligeia” either supporting either of the two views, or coming up with one that is contrasted with both of them. Support with evidence.
5. In Ian Marshall’s “Literal and Metaphoric Harmony with Nature: Harriet Prescott Spofford’s ‘Circumstance'” (Modern Language Studies 1993), he argues that “Circumstance” should be read as an early ecofeminist work. However, Marshall notes near the end, “there is much to complicate this reading of the story as an affirmation of ecofeminist ideas” (54). Use your paper to take up something within the story (it can be one of the things Marshall notes, or something else you noticed) that complicates Marshall’s reading and explain what a better or more nuanced reading might be.

Close Reading Assignment 2
Unit 2: What does “all men” mean?
Please write a 300-500 word response to the prompt in which you summarize the scholarly perspective in prompt (cite the source correctly), raise the question of the prompt, and provide your own answer to the question in the form of a thesis. Support your thesis with reasons evidence and drawn from the relevant texts we have read so far. Conclude your paper by offering at least one significant implication of your thesis.
In the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson famously claims that “all men are created equal…” This phrase has been used throughout the history of the United States to declare the fundamental equality of all people, regardless of race, religion, sex, nation of origin, or ethnic identity. However, Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, the Naturalization Act of 1790, and Douglass’s 4th of July address all seem to point to a more narrow understanding of the phrase “all men.” Gene Andrew Jarrett argues that “Notes seeks to deny the political agency of blacks, even as the Declaration of Independence declares it for the new republic as a whole.”1 Do you agree with Jarett’s assertion that Jefferson’s claims in Notes and the Declaration contradict one another?
Organize your paper into 3 basic paragraphs as follows:
I. Introduction
a. Hook/overview of the main idea
b. Summary of scholarly perspective, including quotation
c. Research question
d. Thesis statement
II. Body
a. Reason 1 supporting thesis
b. Evidence supporting reason 1, quotation/summary of example from readings
c. Explanation of how evidence supports reason 1
d. Reason 2 supporting thesis
e. Evidence supporting reason 2, quotation/summary of example from readings
f. Explanation of how evidence supports reason 2
III. Conclusion
a. Briefly restate thesis
b. Offer at least 1 significant implication of your thesis: if you’re right, then how should we think differently about some/all elements of your thesis statement?

In Good College Writing, read and respond to the discussion questions for “Superhero Comic books” and “Fake News and False Memories.” Please pay attention to proofreading and formatting consistency. Upload your typed responses through MindTap.
Comments from Customer
Discipline: Superhero Comicbooks

Discuss the presence of women and Boccaccio’s view on love in the Decameron. Please refer to the stories we read. You may focus on one novella, or choose different representations.

1. Examine the theme of fortune in Boccaccio’s Decameron, especially in connection to the story about Andreuccio da Perugia. You may also choose to discuss the representation of fortune in the clips from Pasolini’s film. (MAKE SURE TO READ THE ATTACHMENT)