Length: 800-1000 words of commentary
Due: Friday, March 2, by 10:00 a.m. via Canvas

The annotation assignment requires students to electronically mark up a passage from the following list, adding commentary, online resource links, images, sound and/or video clips that explicate the historical, political, social, cultural and literary contexts key to understanding the text. Think of annotations as extended, multimedia versions of the type of notes and resources provided in our editions of Cane and Mrs. Dalloway.

You will need to transcribe your selected passage from our course edition of Ceremony. The annotation should feature four interpretive comments that draw upon primary and secondary source research of at least two contemporary contexts (200-250 words each) and three embedded resources: images, links, maps, archival documents or multimedia files. Consider the following questions when researching context and selecting embedded resources:

• What references—direct or implicit—does the passage make to contemporary political, social, historical and cultural contexts? What do we need to know about that context to fully understand the passage’s content, language, and themes?


• If the passage integrates stories or ceremonies from an oral tradition, how does Silko recontextualize the material? In other words, what new meanings does the embedded text acquire when it becomes part of Ceremony’s action? How does Silko’s use of the oral tradition shape our interpretation of characters and events that exist in non-mythic time?


• How might images, video/sound files, archival documents or interactive maps help the reader enter characters’ experience of trauma and illness, their awareness of history, or their pattern of movement through space?

Your annotated passage should include MLA-formatted in-text citations for the passage and research sources as well as a works cited list.

1. In your interpretive comments, concentrate on the “so what?” Instead of simply identifying a historical, political, social, cultural or literary context, analyze how the context informs the passage’s language (denotation and connotation of specific words, metaphor, repetition, rhythm, etc.), structure (stream of consciousness, interweaving narrative points of view, etc.), characterizations, themes, or ideological stance.

2. Include image captions and brief content descriptions that connect your contextual resources to the passage. The reader should understand how your selected images, documents, maps, links or multimedia file offer a deeper understanding of the passage.

3. You may layer interpretive commentary and embedded resources if you wish, linking to web sites, inserting images and documents into your commentary, or expanding upon the information offered by a link.

4. The easiest way to compose your annotation is via Word. Use the “Comments” or “Footnote” feature to insert your analytical comments. Depending on your version of Word, these features are available through the “Insert” (Word 1997-2004) or “Review” and “References” menus (Word 2007/2010). Add images, links and multimedia files through the “Insert” menu. The English Computer-Integrated Courses web site has instructions on advanced Word functions. Note that if you include a downloaded audio or video file in your annotation, you must submit the file along with your document.

5. Another option for composing the annotation is Google Sites, which gives you a finer degree of control over image and text formatting. The program also allows you to embed multimedia files within the annotation. As a UW student, you have access to a password-protected, advertisement-free version of Google Sites. You’ll find a guide to creating a UW Google Site on our course Canvas page.

6. Do not forget the arguments posed in class, textbook introductory materials or the electronic posting area. A review of lecture notes, Silko’s discussion of her writing process, your own reading notes, the class’s postings, and the oral traditions Ceremony draws upon will help you develop your commentary. You will, of course, cite specific words and interpretations borrowed from classmates or other authors.

7. If you're having difficulty devising an approach to the assignment, or if you want to discuss ideas-in-progress, come to my office hours or email me to set up an appointment.

You may choose one of the following passages for your annotation. If you would like to propose an alternative passage, please get my approval before beginning your assignment. All page numbers refer to the edition of Ceremony ordered for our class.

• “Tayo didn’t sleep well that night”→”a great swollen grief that was pushing into his throat” (5-8).
  
• “The drought years had returned again” → “he cried for all of them, and for what he had done” (9-13).
  
• “For a long time he had been white smoke” → “he was only seeing it for the first time” (13-17).
  
• “He woke up crying” → “All these things/they had to do” (29-34).
  
• “He went with them in the old Ford coupe” → “Tayo and the corporal stumble with the stretcher” (36-40).
  
• “Rocky was standing” → “deer’s body warmed his hands” (46-48).
  
• “Emo rattled the Bull Durham sack” → “‘blown them off the face of the earth’” (50-56).
  
• “Tayo and Auntie understood each other very well” → “you will be alive” (62-66).
  
• “‘I’m thinking about those cattle’” → “‘do you have to go there again?’” (68-71).
  
• “He knew the holy men” → “something was shaking in his belly” (86-89).
  
• “The Gallup Ceremonial” → “no longer been turned or torn away” (107-111).
  
• “The old man laughed” → “inclusive of everything” (113-116).
  
• “He walked into the evening air” → “‘plants in the field’” (117-120).
  
• “The wind came up” → “It can’t be called back” (121-128).
  
• “His mother-in-law suspected something” → “had been gathered there that night” (129-135).
  
• “The trail was parallel” → “to make the land his” (171-174).
  
• “The strands of wire” → “there has never been any other” (177-179).
  
• “He lay there and hated them” → “eh-ah-na-ah!” (189-192). •
• “After Robert had driven away” → “‘I’ll show you’” (203-206).
• “The she-elk was bigger than life” → “‘coming to the end soon’” (214-217).
• “He had been so close to it” → “‘if someone is watching us’” (228-230).
• “The moon was lost in a cloud bank” → “‘comes to town’” (235-238).
• "At the center of the kiva” → “‘It never has been easy,’ I say” (238-241).

The following list is provided as a starting point; you may research and discuss contexts not included on the list.

• WWII, particularly the experience of Native American soldiers either fighting in or returning from WWII
• Dropping of atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Bataan Death March
• Trail of Tears
• Japanese-American internment
• Euro-American and Native American medicine, particularly regarding the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness
• Pueblo (Keres) Indian stories (Pa’caya’nyi; Sun Man and Kaup’a’ta, the Gambler; Hummingbird Man; Corn Woman; Reed Woman; Spider Woman; Nau’ts’ity’i)
• Navajo ceremony to heal coyote transformation (from “The Myth of Red Antway, Male Evilway”)
• Uranium mining and/or atomic bomb testing in New Mexico and other parts of the U.S. southwest
• Indian school
• Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
• Status of biracial/multiracial people within Laguna community
• Economic, social or cultural effects of drought in the U.S. southwest
• History of Pueblo land occupation and loss (or Native Americans as a whole)
• Euro-American versus Native American concepts of the self or identity
• Gender roles (masculinity, feminity)
• Legislation or treaties governing Native American land rights, citizenship, voting rights, etc.
• Status of religion/religious beliefs across generations of Pueblo Indians (effort to convert Native Americans to Christianity, practice of traditional spiritual beliefs)
• Explicit references to historical figures, monuments, geographical locations (particularly spaces considered sacred), aspects of popular culture (songs, Gallup Ceremonials, products, etc.), and orally transmitted stories or ceremonial rituals
• Literary postmodernism
• Silko’s life and writing

I will grade the annotations on a 60-point scale using the following criteria. Annotations that fall in the A range excel in all criteria; those that fall in the B, C, and D range exhibit problems in one or more categories. F-range annotations represent another author’s work as the writer’s own, contain few of the required elements or do not address the significance of context in any manner.

• Complexity: The interpretive commentary exhibits depth, fullness, and complexity of thought. The writer doesn’t simply offer a list of ideas related to the passage’s context(s), but analyzes, with appropriate examples, the relationship between text and context(s).
• Organization: Body of individual comments has a logical structure, with each point connected to the previous and following points.
• Completeness: The annotation includes all required elements.
• Connection: Interpretive commentary demonstrates a clear connection between the cited context(s) and the passage’s language, structure, and content. Embedded resources have clear relationship to the passage.
• Clarity: Writer expresses ideas clearly, and commentary contains few, if any, grammatical and mechanical errors.
• Citation: Writer correctly cites words and ideas borrowed from others and provides source information for all embedded resources and primary/secondary sources referenced in the interpretive commentary.

• A Range: 53-60 points
  
• B Range: 38-52 points
  
• C Range: 23-37 points
  
• D Range: 11-36 points
  
• F Range: 0-11 points

• Sample Annotation 1
• Sample Annotation 2