English 370, Spring 2021

Final: Write your essay in any word processing program you'd like, and then Block, Copy and Paste your essay into a standard email, and send it to me AT or BEFORE 5:00 pm. (I repeat: DO NOT SEND YOUR PAPER AS AN ATTACHMENT! BLOCK, COPY, AND PASTE it into a standard email addressed to cicero@uw.edu!)

Below are three passages from three different sources. Choose ONE for your analysis, and then go to work.

In your answer I will be looking for pretty much exactly what we have been doing in class for the past few weeks:

Word limit: 500 words.

Passage 1:

Excerpted from Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami.

            Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That’s the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine…. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in.  That’s what this storm’s all about.    

Passage 2:

Excerpted from Truth, Love and a Little Malice, by Khushwant Singh

            It is safest to begin with the beginning. Where I was born I have been told by people who were present at my birth. When I was born remains a matter of conjecture. I am told I was born in a tiny hamlet called Hadali, lost in the sand dunes of the Thar desert some thirty kilometres west of the river of Jhelum and somewhat the same distance southward of the Khewra Salt Range. Hadali is now deep inside Pakistan. At the time I was born, my father, Sobha Singh, was away in Delhi with his father, Sujan Singh. When the news was sent to him, he did not bother to put it down in his diary. I was his second son. At that time records of births and deaths were not kept in our villages. Unlike Hindus who noted down the time of birth of their offspring so that their horoscopes could be cast, we Sikhs had no faith in astrology, and therefore attached no importance to the time and place of nativity.

Passage 3:

Academic Integrity Policy, from UW College of Education

The College of Education holds very high standards regarding academic integrity. Work submitted in this course must be the product of your own original effort. When you incorporate the works, words, or ideas of another, you must provide proper citations. If you are concerned about plagiarism, have questions about legitimate forms of collaboration, or are unclear about appropriate methods of citation, consult a style manual or the instructor. Along with plagiarism and unauthorized collaboration, other forms of academic misconduct include (but are not limited to) falsifying attendance records and submitting the work of others as if it were your own. Violations of the Academic Integrity Policy will result in sanctions that can range from disciplinary warning, to probation or suspension to — in the event of severe or repeated violations — dismissal from the University. For more information, please refer to the College of Education’s Academic Integrity Policy and related procedures.